Empty Boundaries
by The Uncreative
Summary: Oh boy, yet another "Louise summons X" story. This time, the pinkette summons a rather interesting girl. This should be fun.
1. Chapter 1

**Author Notes:**

Okay, first chapter of my new pet project! I probably shouldn't be writing this, considering there's a lot of other things I wanted to get at first, but ideas kept multiplying. This was a weird story genesis. I started off with the idea of this character first, and the story kind of started building up around it. And in case you're wondering, I do have a few more ideas for the story rather then just "copy the light novels." ... Probably. Hopefully. We'll see. Anyway, we're about done here. See you next time.

**Chapter 1**

"And just who are you supposed to be?" I hear the voice before I see who it belongs too. Might be because I'm facedown in the grass. Just a hunch.

To cure that terrible predicament, I roll over and sit up. Whoa, what's with the crowd? Some kind of party, cult gathering or LARP happening? The wizard capes everyone's wearing leads me to believe the latter, but I'll wait to pass judgment. First thing's first.

"Damn, got some dirt on my glasses," I mutter as I take them off and use my shirt to clean them up a bit.

"Are you ignoring me?" The voice from earlier asks me.

"That's just like the zero, she can't even be bothered to someone a commoner with manners!"

Then laughter was had. Must be some kind of in-joke, 'cause I don't get it. Either way, considering the only other person not laughing was this pink haired girl standing roughly in front of me and this other guy who was looking rather teacherly with his staff and glass and shaved head, I'ma assume the girl's this so called, "Zero." Neat.

"Well," I say as I put my glasses back on and spring to my feet. "Nice to meet 'cha!" I say as I extend my hand and offer a smile. "What the hell am I doing here?"

"If you'll excuse me for speaking up," Mr. Teacher says. "We were just holding our summoning ritual. And... Well, it appears that Ms. Valliere summoned you."

...

"So this is a LARP gathering!" I exclaim as I pound my fist into my palm.

"Wh-what in the founder's name is a larp?" Ms. Valliere asks, clearly annoyed at me. "The summoning ritual is a sacred and longstanding tradition! Don't desecrate it with your... Ridiculous terminology!"

"Geez, some people just take this too seriously," I say as I put my hands behind my head.

"In any case, Ms. Valliere. You did summon her. Please complete the ritual."

At that, Ms. Valliere blushes. "Wi-with her? You can't be serious! That's indecent!"

"Sounds fun! Wait," I say with a frown. "We're not having a mana transfer ritual are we? That's definitely a little weird out here with everyone watching."

"Wh-whatever!" Ms. Valliere says. "Just... Just hold still for a second."

"Why?"

"Just do it!"

The yell makes me stand still. Scary.

Ms. Valliere sighs and raises her small stick. "My name is Louise Francoise le Blanc de la Valliere. In the name of the pentagon of the elemental powers, please bless this being and make her my familiar."

... That's the first time I've ever been "blessed." Normally it's the opposite. I... I don't know what to think about that.

Ignoring my state of not being cursed for once, Ms. Valliere, no, wait. She said her name was Louise. Much easier. Louise then proceeds to lean in and give me a quick peck on the lips. She breaks contact before I could, so it's all cool.

"... I-I'm sorry, but... Well I like to think I'm as curious as the next girl, but now is hardly the time" I tell her, trying to will my blushing to go away.

"I-It's not like I wanted to do it either!" Louise protests. "It's necessary to finish the contract!"

Before I can ask what she means by contract, I feel an ever so slight tingling on my left hand. A quick inspection reveals a set of runes being engraved. ... Well they've got a budget for this, I'll give 'em that.

"It's complete," Louise says with a sigh of both anger and relief.

The teacher dude from slightly earlier then grabs my hand gently and inspects my new tattoo.

"Interesting," he muses. "I've never seen this kind of rune before."

To be fair, neither have I, so maybe he's on to something here.

"In any case," he says after letting go of my hand, "Congratulations to everyone for succeeding in your summoning ritual. You are dismissed, and may go back to your rooms."

And so they walked away. Most of them. A few of them kind of floated away. Literally floated. ... Hmph. How about that?

"Holy hell they're flying away," I note, shock making me unable to emote as much as I'd like. "That's... that's freaking awesome."

"Of course they're flying," Louise grumbles to herself. How else would mages get around?" _Jetpacks?_ "Bunch of showoffs."

"Showoffs, eh? I guess you aren't capable of that then?" I ask out of curiosity.

"... No. Now let's go, familiar," Louise says before stomping off.

"... mages huh?" I must as I look at the sky. "Heh. He would have loved this."

Either way, now's not the time to be reminiscing. If I don't follow her, I'll probably lose her and have no idea what to do next.

***Scene Break***

"Now, familiar," Louise says as she plops down onto her bed. "You still never answered me. Who exactly are you, anyway?"

"Me? Jocelyn."

"That's it? No family name or anything? Is your status that low?" She asks in a mix of anger and annoyance.

"No, no. I just don't see a need to say anything beyond that. Makes it so that people are forced to refer to me by my first name, thus making relationships closer. Or something like that."

"Hmph. Whatever," Louise says.

"So, exactly what's going on?" I ask. "I'm a little... iffy on what just happened today."

"Founder, she doesn't even know the basics? All commoners should at least have heard the familiar ritual! What backwoods area did you come from anyway?"

"New York, now please fill me in on details."

_That_ confuses Louise. "New... York? Where's that? I've never heard of it."

"... You're kidding, right? You know what? Doesn't matter. Just... Just explain, please?" Being in the dark frightens me. Not, the actual dark, I mean not having the proper amount of information.

Louise dismisses the prior conversation, and assumes a lecture pose. "You are currently at the Tristain Academy of Magic. You were summoned to be my familiar-"

"Question!" I say as I raise my hand. "Should I have heard of Tristain?"

"O-of course! That's where you are!" Louise yells at me.

"Nnnnnnnnope. Can't say I have."

... "Anyway," Louise dismisses my idiocy and continues on with her lecture. "The purpose of a familiar is as follows. Whatever the familiar sees, the master is also supposed to be able to see."

That worries me. "You aren't seeing through my eyes, are you?"

Louise shakes her head. "No. For some reason it doesn't work with you. Why not?"

I sigh in relief, something that Louise notices.

"What's with that?" She asks, suspicion obvious in her voice.

"Well, I'd hate to be going to the bathroom or something and you take a peak or something," I tell her, sidestepping the real reason.

Louise blushes. "L-like I would ever even think of doing that!"

That's what they all say at first. "Right, of course. Continue the lecture, please."

Louise takes a deep breath and calms down. "Right. Second, familiars are supposed to find reagents for their master's spells or potion crafting."

"Yeah, of course I can do that," I say, laying the sarcasm on thick. "Not like I'm an idiot when it comes to magic." Hell, I'm still trying to come to grips with the fact that it apparently exists at all.

"I expected as much," Louise says with a nod. "Thirdly, a familiar exists to protect it's master! Even at the cost of it's own life if necessary!" She says with much bravado.

I chuckle a little. "Finally, something easy!"

Louise seems stunned. "What do you mean?"

"Easy. Point me in the direction of something you don't like and tell me to kill it and it should be done with no difficulty."

"Y-you barely look like you could handle a crow!" Louise exclaims. "What if I was attacked by a dragon or something similar?"

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear," I say as I take off my glasses and spin them around a bit. "I can kill anything that exists. Even if it's a god."

There's a silence as Louise let's that sink in. Then she bursts into laughter.

"I get that a lot," I say as I put my glasses back on. "Never get anyone to believe me until I can prove it."

"Because it's ridiculous!" Louise says, barely managing to stop her laughter. "You think you can claim to kill gods and be taken seriously?"

"Well hand me a knife and we'll see who can't kill everything," I remark offhandedly. "On second thought let's not. You break it you buy it after all."

"Whatever," Louise says. "You're a familiar, so get to work. There's a pile of laundry that needs washing. Get to it."

And with that she strips down, gets in her pajamas and goes to sleep, leaving me to do all the work. Yay? I'd normally question the idea of stripping down in front of others, but we're both girls. Locker room mentality or something. Either way, there was something I needed/_really_ wanted to do, and this is a good chance to do it. I grab the pile of laundry that Louise specified and head out to find a good place to wash it.

It turns out that searching an area you're completely unfamiliar with for an area you've only ever heard of isn't such a hot idea. Go figure.

After about an hour of meandering about with no luck, I give a dejected sigh, drop the clothes and lie down on the grassy area where I was first summoned and just stare at the sky and notice the blue and pink moons in the sky. It's that late already. Either way, that does answer one question.

"A different world, huh?" I chuckle to myself. "I'll make sure to tell the pinkhead tomorrow."

Of course, no one responds.

"So what do you think I should do?" I ask no one. "A new world I know nothing about, magic exists, and I gotta help a little pink haired girl. You'd be all over this, wouldn't you?"

After that, I shut up a bit and wait for a response I know won't come. Then I feel a sharp pain as something plants itself firmly into my gut.

"Damn, that hurts!" I manage to get out before the object leaves my stomach.

"Ah! So sorry!" A girl's voice says. "I didn't see you there!"

Oh, so I was stepped on. Another mystery solved! A painful mystery, but a mystery nonetheless!

"That's okay," I tell her as I sit up. "I've been hit by worse."

"Let me help," the girl says as she helps pull me up.

"Thanks."

I take the time to examine the girl. Ooh! Black haired maid! Ah, nothing quite like the classics. Only the best of the best!

"Ah! You're the girl that Ms. Valliere summoned today, aren't you?" The maid asks me.

"So I've been told. Name's Jocelyn," I tell her as I offer a handshake.

"Siesta," She says with a smile as she returns the handshake.

"Nice to meetcha," I tell her.

"Likewise. What are you doing out here so late at night?" Siesta asks me.

"Well, the pink haired one asked," _read: commanded._ "Me to do her laundry for her. Turns out, I'm new here and have no idea where anything is."

"I can help," Siesta tells me. "It's the least I can do for accidentally stepping on you."

"If you insist. Lead the way Siesta!"

Siesta led me to some kind of wash basin on the other end of the castle and showed me the proper way to wash clothes. After all, the most I know how to do is turn the washing machine on, and even then the thing tends to explode when I so much as walk past, so that's not overly reliable either.

"Thanks Siesta," I tell her as I grab the pile of freshly folded clothes. "Hey, I was wondering something. You know where the kitchen is?"

Siesta seems confused. "Yes, of course, but why do you ask?"

"For future reference, would you mind showing me where it is? Just in case I need something from there?"

"Sure. You just..."

Wow. Siesta can give some really detailed instructions. Can all maids give the exact directions to someplace down to the number of steps?

"I've worked here a while," Siesta admits bashfully.

"Well thanks," I tell her before going on my way.

"Okay," I mutter to myself. "Thirty steps east, past the courtyard..."

Eventually I do wind up right where I was told I would. Just one thing was wrong.

"Hmm. One step off. Well, maybe our stride count is slightly different."

Either way, I make my way past the food stuffs, past the pots and pans and straight to the utensils. As I start going through the things, I start muttering to myself.

"Alright, where do you think the knives'd be?" I ask no one. "Well, here's the spoons and stuff. Ladles. Spatulas. Tenderizer? Neat. Ah! Knives!"

Whew. Such a huge selection! Let's see.

"Well, what do you think? Which one seems the sharpest?"

"That'd be the one on the far left."

"Wah!" I say instinctively, grabbing the leftest knife and pointing it at the voice. "Oh. Hi Siesta."

"Miss Jocelyn, what are you doing, going through our knives?" Siesta asks, completely indifferent, as if this was a completely normal occurrence.

"I'd ask how I knew you knew I'd be here, but I wasn't exactly subtle, was I?" I ask.

"No. As such, I gave you the directions for the long way so I could get here first and unlock the door. I'd hate for your to break the lock just to get in," Siesta says.

"Yeah, then I'd probably have to pay with money I don't have," I admit as I nervously rub the back of my head. "To answer your question, I was here to take a knife to properly defend myself. You see, back home I always had a knife on hand, just in case. Since I was just sort of resting back home when I was brought here, I didn't have a knife when I came here. That makes me a little nervous, so I thought I'd grab something to keep myself calm."

"Why would you carry a knife with you?" Siesta asks.

I shrug. "Just in case. You never know. I live a very dangerous life," I say that last part rather dryly.

"Yes, I can tell by your manner of dress. It just screams 'danger,'" Siesta informs me.

I look down at my current clothing. Denim skirt. Red jacket. Sneakers. Gotta agree with the maid here. I don't really dress the part. Ah! That does remind me though! I reach into my skirt pocket and pull out a hair thingie and tie my brownish hair in a ponytail.

"There. Much better," I say to myself. "I like ponytails," I inform the maid.

"I understand. And do go ahead and keep the knife. As you can see, we have a surplus as it is. Just one missing won't cause an uproar."

"Thanks," I say as I twirl the knife around a bit before strapping it to my skirt.

"May I ask one more thing?" Siesta asks.

"Shoot."

"Who were you talking too when I walked in?"

"..."

"A-ah! For-forget I asked," Siesta says in a hurry, noting my expression.

"It's fine. I might share that information one day. Maybe not. For now just assume I had an imaginary friend when I was 11 and never got rid of him."

"U-Understood. Good night Miss Jocelyn."

"Night Siesta."

***The Next Day***

Then next day I was sitting with Louise in her classroom. While there wasn't any particular argument like:

"I should go to class to learn about stuff!"

"Fine! Just don't annoy me!"

It was a sort of unstated agreement with Louise that I should accompany her. Considering everyone else had their familiars with them, I guess that's just how it goes.

Oh yeah, I did bring up the fact that I'm from another world with Louise. She laughed at me. Not really sure what I expected. Oh, and I met one of Louise's friend, Kirche. Nice girl. Busty girl. Honestly it makes me feel a little inadequate being around her. ... Still bigger then Louise.

Louise and Kirche apparently hate each other (Well, Louise hates Kirche and Kirche loves trolling Louise). Some "Romeo and Juliet" thing about the families hating each other for so long that they just kind of know they hate each other. They're be best friends in no time, that much is obvious. Maybe a little more if that Romeo and Juliet comparison holds true. ... Are girls allowed to think girl-on-girl is hot without actually going that way? I may need to ask someone about this later.

Going back to the class I was currently sitting in, I was bored out of my skull. Even in other world, class is still soooooooo boring. About thirty minutes in I start just sort of twirling my knife around and doing some tricks with it, much the same way you'd sort of spin a pen. Louise caught me and made me put the knife away before I was caught and yelled at. Luckily I wasn't, but now I'm just sort of bored. It'd be nicer if I was interested in the technicalities of the world, but I'm kind of not. Fire, earth, water, wind, void, la di dah. Unlike stuff at schools in my world that I just find boring, this is boring _and_ completely useless to me.

Luckily the next period was a free period for students to get to know their familiars, then it's lunch time so even more free time! I love it!

"Alright, so how's this increase bonding between familiar and master going to work out?" I ask Louise as we stepped out into the courtyard.

"I don't know!" Louise complains. "If it'd been an animal like a dragon, of something then I'd just see what it was capable of. It's abilities, it's limitations, it's weakness, it's strengths, things like that. What am I supposed to do with a human that claims she can kill gods!"

"Ask the human how she intends to follow up on that, perhaps?" I offer.

Louise seems genuinely stunned. "... I never thought about that."

"Very few ever do," I point out.

"Very well. How do you intend to follow through on you claim?" Louise asks. "And, please tell me it's more elaborate then 'take the knife and kill them with it.'"

"Well that's technically accurate. Obviously there's more to it then just that. You see... Terribly sorry, I just got distracted. Is that guy over there usually getting yelled at by two girls?"

I imagine Louise would be upset by the sudden change in conversation, but she turns around and check what I'm talking about anyway. She then turns back to me as if it were nothing. Yes, ignore the scrawny blonde guy, and the blonde girl yelling at the brunette.

"Ah, it's just Guiche. Probably got caught two timing again," Louise says offhandedly.

"I dunno. That seems a little heated over something as simple as getting caught two timing. Is that blonde girl getting ready to hit the brunette?"

On close inspection, that does appear to be the case! How... stupid. Well, let's go investigate. I get up and start walking over. Louise follows me. Not closely, but she is going in the same direction, which is nice.

"Why you little-" Instead of completing her sentence, the blonde girl goes in for the slap, and the brunette cringes in fear of the approaching slap. Well, sorry to say, that slap isn't coming.

"Well, what's going on here?" I ask, as I hold onto the blonde girl's wrist. "Now is neither the time nor place for a catfight. Those should only be held when there's a pool of water or a vat of gelatin to fall into."

"What are you talking about?" The blonde girl yells at me. "Let me go!"

"Well, you still haven't answered my question."

"This first year is busy trying to seduce Guiche!" The blonde yells at me.

"Th-that's not true!" The first year says. "I was bringing the soufflé I was asked about and-"

"Liar!"

"L-Ladies, there's a simple explanation for this," Guiche says, trying to defuse the situation.

"Yeah!" I say. "Let's just go over the facts. First year brunette!"

"M-My name is Katie."

"Katie! What's this about a soufflé?"

"Well... Well last night I was talking with Mr. Guiche and he asked to try one of my soufflés, so I made one and was coming to bring it to him."

"A'ight. Blondie!"

"It's Montmorency!"

"Montmorency! Your side of the story!"

"I was coming to see Guiche and I find this girl trying to seduce him with promises of pastries and cakes!"

To be fair, promises of cake from anyone would probably be for me, but let's not get into that.

"I'll have you know that Guiche is my boyfriend!" Montmorency yells at Katie.

"B-But Guiche said the only one he held in his heart was me!" Katie claims.

Montmorency stops. "That's what he said to me."

At that, as the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place, the two girls turn to Guiche, looks of uncontrollable anger on their faces.

"Guiche, duck!" I yell at him.

"What?"

*SMASH*

"Well, can't say I didn't try," I lament as the combined force of Montmorency's and Katie's punch to the face send Guiche straight to the ground.

"Hmph. And good riddance," Montmorency says before turning to Katie. "I'm sorry for falsely accusing you."

"Th-that's okay. Let's just go somewhere else," Katie says with a smile. "Oh, and Ms.?"

"Who, me?" I ask, pointing to myself.

"Thank you for helping clear this whole mess up."

"I didn't do much of anything. You're still welcome, though. See you two around."

And with that, Katie and Montmorency walked off, a new friendship blowing in the breeze. Ah, how beautiful. The lovely scene is marred only by the mangled thing that was once known as Guiche struggle to pull himself up.

"Well. I've seen worse attempts at building a harem," I remark to the poor kid. "... Wait, scratch that. I haven't. That was honestly pathetic. Using the same line on both girls? At least put some effort into it!"

"Jocelyn, don't provoke him," Louise says with a jab to my side.

"Well it was pathetic!" I say. Besides, provoking people is fun!

"You," Guiche says as he gets up and points a rose at me. "You dare to insult a noble such as me? Know your place commoner!"

"Yes, the mighty and noble Guiche, proudly picking his face out of the dirt after two girls knocked him out!"

"Hold your tongue!"

"Geez, some people just have such a hard time accepting insults disguised as jokes."

"Did you just admit to insulting me?" Guiche asks.

"Not in so many words, but pretty much."

"Fine then. What was your name?"

"Jocelyn," how many more times will I need to say that?

"Well then, Ms. Jocelyn. Your stains against nobility's honor cannot go unpunished."

"Your stains against humanity can't go unpunished, but you don't see me complaining," I remark.

"Can you shut up for five seconds?" Louise hisses at me.

"No, not really."

"I challenge you to a duel!" Guiche tells me.

Louise gasps. "You can't do that! That's against the rules!"

"Bah, I've always played outside the rules anyway!" I tell her. "I'm sure we can come up with a loophole eventually."

"Indeed. Very well. I will see you at Vestri Court. I do hope you not show up though. I'd hate to almost kill someone such as yourself."

Good luck with that.

"I will see you at Vestri Court Ms Joc."

_!_

He's lucky Louise was there. Otherwise there wouldn't have been anyone to grab my arm and keep the knife from plunging into his throat. As it stands, only the tip is barely touching his neck.

"Wh-what are you doing!" Louise yells as she pulls on my arm.

"Don't you _ever_ call me that," I snarl at Guiche. "Do that one more time and I don't care if Louise is hanging on. I'll kill you."

Guiche doesn't respond. He just gulps in fear.

"Tch."

I lower the knife, but Louise doesn't let go of my arm.

"Go," I tell him. "Get to that Vestri Court. I hope that magic of yours can really help you. I'd hate for it to be too quick."

Having said my piece, I give Guiche a push, and he falls back to the ground. He crawls back to his feet then scrambles away.

"Jocelyn, what was that about?" Louise asks me.

"Nothing incredibly important, as long as no one calls me that," I tell her.

"You're not really going to fight him, are you?" Louise asks me. "A commoner can never hope to beat a noble."

"And no one here can ever hope to beat me. Where's Vestri court?" I ask.

Louise still seams nervous, but she starts dragging me off anyway. I can't wait till we get there. Maybe she'll finally let go of my arm.

And it turns out my hope was not misplaced! Louise let go of my arm once we arrived at the destination. Turns out a crowd showed up. The fact that there's a crowd, plus the slight time lag must have given Guiche a chance to work up his bravado, as he's back to his usual show offy self.

"So you decided to show up," he remarks.

"That's my line. And don't worry. I've calmed down a bit so I probably won't kill you. How's this gonna go down? First to yield?"

"But of course," Guiche says with a nod.

Well I've already won because of that, so that's fun. Guiche waves his rose once and a petal comes off. The petal hits the ground, which then lights up, and a stone valkyrie rises up in its place.

"This golem shall be your opponent," Guiche tells me. "If you wish to concede the fight, simply apologize for insulting nobility-"

"You kidding? Let's get this party started!" I say as I draw my knife, spin it around a bit then point it at the golem.

Guiche seems confused, but brushes it off. "Proceed, my valkyrie."

"Bring it, stone head!"

Words exchanged, the golem charges me. It goes for an overhead, but I dodge, and put myself behind the golem.

_Okay. This knife's made for cutting meat, not steel. This thing's basically an animated hunk of armor, where are the chinks? Okay. First the arms. Disable it's main method of attack. Seems a little too top heavy to try kicks. As such, priority target. Then go in for the kill. Cut the head off. Aim for the neck, then sever. I'll start once it swings for me again. Gotta move fast though, this thing's got some swing behind it's punch._

Let's get started. Just bide my time and wait for a chance. The golem swings a right hook at me. I leap back, dodging the blow. It charges me, so I toss myself to the right, roll and and get back to my feet. The golem charges me one last time, and throws a flurry of punches. _Dodge. Dodge. Dodge._

"Are you only capable of dodging?" Guiche asks. "This can all be over if you simply apologize and concede defeat."

_Dodge. _

The golem swings one more time.

_Chance! _

I duck the punch, and before the golem gets a chance to recover, I stick my blade into the chink between arm and torso. I work the blade, and the arm comes right off, hitting the floor with a thud.

_Chance!_

While the golem's still stunned, I stick the knife right into where the other arm connects to the body. I slice through, and the arm comes right off again, leaving the golem armless.

_Chance!_

I complete the combo by plunging the knife into the golem's neck, then put a hand on the golem's shoulder.

"Endgame."

I push the golem to spin it and start cutting all that keeps the golem's head connected to his body. I grab the golem's shoulder to stop the spinning. There's a brief second where nothing happens, right before the golem's head simple rolls off from it's perch and hits the floor, before melting into the ground. I push the golem and push it right to the ground. It lies there for a while before it melts into the ground, just like the arms and head. I look at Guiche.

"You better have more then that if you want to stand even a chance," I let him know.

Guiche briefly startles, then waves his rose a bit more. A bunch of petals hit the ground, and a total of 8 new valkyries rise from the ground. I grin.

"Now that's more like it," I say as a put a hand to my glasses and reverse my grip on the knife. "Better. Still not enough. Still, I guess I can afford to show off a bit."

"What are you talking about!" Louise yells at me from the crowd.

"Valkyries! Attack!" Guiche yells, before the golems go for me.

"This'll be good," I say as I close my eyes, still holding onto the frame of my glasses. I take my glasses off and throw them into the air. "I'll make it quick."

I open my eyes, and observe the world. The surrounding area is blue, with Louise being a slightly lighter shade of blue, as I thought she'd be. The golems are the familiar red aura indicating enemies, but that's not what I look at. I observe the dark violet lines grafted onto the world. I focus on the lines going across the golems. I grin and charge the golems.

The first one was easy. The lines were right across it's chest, making it an easy target. I tighten my grip on the knife and stab it into the first line. I drag the knife and cut along the line, before plunging it into the next line. I cut across one line, then the next, then the next. Eventually the golem falls to the ground in 17 pieces.

"First!"

Then next was trickier. It's lines we centered more on the arms, which were being used to swing a sword. Unfortunately for the golem, the sword has it's own lines. Sparks fly as the two blades meet. I remove my knife from the deadlock, and swing it 3 times. Cuts appear on the blade, as it falls apart in 4 pieces. I swing and cut the golems arms to pieces as it falls to the ground, dead.

"Come on!"

I start work on the third one by slicing through it's legs. It hits the ground and finish by slicing into it's head a few times. The fourth one tries to take an advantage and swings it's mace at me. I cut the mace apart then slice the golem itself into pieces.

"NEXT!"

The fifth one aims a punch for my head. I tilt my head, and the fist stops a few inches to the side of my head. I cut his arm into 4 pieces, then his torso into another 7 pieces. The sixth one swings an axe at me horizontally, I duck under it, then cut off the golem's hand. I catch the axe before it hits the ground and slice the golem in half at the waist. I didn't even bother aiming for the lines.

"BRING IT!"

The seventh one tries to cut me off at the knees. I jump up and land on the sword. I stick my knife into it's helm, and vault over it. The golem falls to the ground, it's helmet having been cut in half. I land right in front of the eighth golem, and cut him up into 7 pieces. He falls apart.

"Damn. Over already."

I hold my hand out, catch my glasses and put them back on. I blink, and the world is back to it's technicolor glory. I point my knife at Guiche, who falls to his knees in shock.

"You done yet?" I ask. "I can always aim for you next, you know?"

"I... I concede defeat," Guiche says sullenly.

"Awesome!" I saw as I walk over to him and offer him a hand up. "Need help?"

"Huh?" Guiche asks incredulously.

"Well, it's over, I won, we're all good now, I'm asking if you need a hand getting up out of the dirt."

Since he doesn't seem to be responding yet, I just grab his hand and pull him to his feet.

"There. I think we're about done here."

I turn around and walk off, grabbing the incredulous Louise and drag her off to her room.

***Scene Break***

"What was that out there?" Louise asks me, as I lied down on her bed and got ready for another night time exposition talk.

"Think of it as a demonstration," I say as I stare up at the ceiling. "I did say I could kill anything, right?"

"But those were bronze golems!" Louise exclaims. "A simple kitchen knife shouldn't be able to cut them into pieces like you did!"

"I have that ability."

Louise pauses for a second. "What do you mean?"

"My senses are better then most," I tell her. "I can easily identify friends and enemies, and I can see the lines keeping things connected to life. I just sort of cut along those lines, and the thing dies."

I take off my glasses and turn on Death Perception. ... That's a stupid name.

"Like there, on the ceiling," I tell her as I lazily point at the ceiling and trace along the lines up there. "There. There. And there."

"Your eyes changed color," Louise notes.

"Yeah, they do that. Brown when I'm not killing things, A vibrant blue when something needs to die. I don't like keeping it on too long though. The longest I've ever held it on was five minutes or so. I felt like my head was being cut in half afterwards."

"Is that why you were happy I couldn't see through your eyes?" Louise asks.

"Yeah. I mean, I've got these naturally, have had 'em for five years, and I'm worried they'll kill me. Imagine what'll happen if you see through them."

"Do those glasses of yours stop you from seeing the lines?"

I chuckle. "Hardly. They're not even prescription. I just wear them more for peace of mind. I mean, the makers claim that the glass could stop a cannonball. Just peace of mind is all. I can see the lines just fine with 'em on. Well, obviously the glasses have lines, and that gets in the way a bit."

"So... So you could kill me at any point if you wanted?" Louise asks in a hushed voice.

"Could. Not gonna. No need. Besides, you're an ally. I wouldn't want to kill you."

"So, you can see the lines that kill me?" Louise asks.

"Yep."

I look at Louise, touch my finger to her face and start tracing.

"Here."

I trace my finger down her face and to her neck.

"Here."

I trace the line down past her chest and to her stomach.

"A few here."

"C-can you stop, please?" Louise asks, her face red for one reason or another.

"Sure. About time for bed anyway."

Louise nods, then changes into her pajamas. I put my glasses on the nightstand, and take off my skirt and toss it into a corner of the room. We lie down on the bed and close our eyes.

"Jocelyn."

"Yes, Louise?"

"Why are you in the bed with me?"

"Not really anywhere else to sleep."

"Right. Good night Jocelyn."

"Good night Louise."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author notes:**

Not much happened this chapter, I guess. We dealt with the Fouquet thing that usually happens, and then we had the dreamscape portion. First, the Fouquet thing. Originally I was going to do what always happens and go all "Oh! Giant golem stealing things! Fight! Fight! Fight!" I decided against it because that's what always happens. Surely we can come up with a different solution, right? The idea of a peaceful resolution and Jocelyn actually helping her sprang from that. Will it have any effect on the future? ... Nope. Not really. Not as far as I've planned out anyway which is... Two chapters ahead? Maybe less?

Next, the dreamscape and the talk with Angel. She's simultaneously important, and completely unimportant. I say that because... I guess the best way to describe it as she's the hero of another story, one running parallel to this one. That particular story does have it's own effect on this one, but we'll get to that when we get to it. So basically, it's technically a dream but it really happened. ... That makes no sense, does it? Even I don't know what I'm trying to say. The point is, Angel is an important character. There. We're done here. See you next chapter.

**Chapter 2 **

"H-hey! Where do you think you're grabbing! Off!"

I feel a hand shoving me back, and I roll over and fall face first onto the floor.

"Ow! What was that for?" I ask as I sit up and reach for my glasses on the nightstand.

"You were hugging me a bit too tightly for my tastes," Louise says, her face red. "Am I to expect that from you every night?"

... I know I had that whole spiel about being curious, but that was more of a nervous quip then anything. I'm not going to make a move on you after just barely knowing you.

"Sorry," I tell her as I stand up and stretch. "Didn't have a pleasant dream. You know how when you're little and you get scared you just sort of hug the closest thing available? It was pretty much that. Guess I never grew out of it."

"You can kill anything with ease but still get scared at dreams?" Louise seems a bit surprised. "What kind of dream was it?"

"It was... Huh. I can't remember."

I normally remember the dreams I have, mostly because they tend to recur. Can't remember this one though. Hmph. Annoying, but not completely unwanted. Not knowing means it's a dream I haven't had yet, and I've been looking for a bit of variety in my dreams, even if I can't quite remember it. Variety is the spice of life after all.

"I guess it's not too surprising," Louise says. "I can never remember my dreams either. That aside, put a skirt on already!"

"Hm? Oh, yeah. I guess it is about time to get ready for the day," I remark as I search the room for my skirt. "Ah! There it is."

Once me and the mistress get ready, we head out for another fantastic day of learning!

***Scene Break***

"Soooooo boring!" I complain as the last class of the day lets out.

"Quit complaining," Louise tells me. "School's important."

"And explosions are fun," I remark, earning a glare from Louise. "... What? I like watching things blow up. Being with you is like a dream come true."

Louise's face slightly reddens for one reason or another.

"Don't say things that can be misunderstood," she tells me.

"?"

"Don't '?' me!" Louise yells at me. "Whatever. I have some homework to finish, so unless you want to help with that, you're free to do whatever."

"Cool. Think I'll drop by the kitchen, apologize for stealing their knife. See you around Louise."

Louise nods in my general direction before heading off to her room. I observe my surroundings and start going over it in my head.

"Okay, it was 23 steps east-"

"Still remember those directions?"

"Wah!" I grab my knife and point it at the voice. "Oh. Hey Siesta."

"Ms. Jocelyn, could you please not point a knife at me every time I ask a question?" Siesta asks completely calmly, as if knives in her face are a completely regular occurrence.

"Ah. Right. Sorry," I say as I put the knife away. "I got startled. I was just going to stop by the kitchen and apologize for stealing a knife."

"Ah. I don't think that'll be too much of a problem," Siesta tells me.

"Why's that?"

"Perhaps it's best if I show you myself. Shall I?"

"Sure. Lead the way!"

I followed Siesta as she led me over to the kitchen to meet some of the other staff. ... Ehem. I'm still trying to pretend it never happened. The head chef is... enthusiastic, let's say. Scarily so. Some neat nicknames though. None I'd repeat or like to be called, but neat. I think my favorite was, "knife wielding she-demon." Not sure if it's an insult or compliment, but it sounds cool. Maybe if I work hard enough I can get a nickname promotion from she-demon to angel of death. _That_'d be badass!

Either way, I spent a bit more time with Siesta and the kitchen staff then I intended too, so by the time we were done, it was starting to get dark out, so I decided to head back to the room of the little mistress.

"Hmmm. Maybe a small detour wouldn't be bad," I mention to myself. "Been meaning to go for a few nighttime strolls anyway."

I oftentimes went for a few nighttime endeavors back home to help clear my head of anything I felt needed clearing, so let's bring that tradition over here! Helps get a lay of the land, anyway, so nothing but points in favor of walking!

And so my scouting of the academy went underway! After a few hours, I think I had managed to map out a few basic routes, all centered on Louise's room, since that's technically also my room. To the kitchen, to the classroom, to the headmaster's room, a few simple places like that.

My route back to Louise's room happened to pass by some giant doorway that according to the sign next to it was some kind of giant treasury. Wonder what's in there? As I ponder that, I hear some footsteps coming from the opposite direction. I turn and see some woman with longish green hair, wearing one of those mantles everyone has and glasses. The difference between this one and everyone else was that her mantle/cape thing had a hood attached. I want one.

"And who're you?" I ask.

"I could ask the same," she replies.

"You don't know who you are? Sad," I say with a shake of my head.

"What? No, I mean, who are you?" she clarifies.

"Mommy told me not to talk to strangers!" I say in my best children's voice.

She sighs. "Ms. Loungvillle is my name," she tells me. "And you are?"

"Jocelyn. Whatcha doing out here so late? Before you ask in a way that allows me to reply with a snarky comment, I'm going for a late night walk. Keeps the unwanted dreams away, you know? You?"

"I was here to catalogue the items in the treasury," she tells me quickly.

"Uh-huh. Got a key, or an alternate route? That door's locked up tight. Nothing I couldn't get past, but other people might have some trouble."

"How do you suppose you'd get through?" Loungeville says, rather interested by this point. "The lock's been enchanted to not react to spells of unlocking or unbinding, and the door itself has been enhanced by a square-class mage, so not even transmutation would affect it."

"That's for me to know and you to guess," I say with a smirk. "You said you wanted to catalogue, right?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Anything worth 'cataloguing' in there?" I ask.

Loungville pauses for a second, then sees what I'm implying and smirks. "The staff of destruction, for one. It's said to be nigh-unmatchable in power, being able to reduce a building size golem to pieces with a single shot."

"Sounds like it's worth some coinage," I remark. "Anything in particular you have in mind, or did you just like the prospect of a ton of money in your pocket?"

"You said you could open that door, right?" Loungeville asks me.

"Standard deal? I help you, you tell me?"

Loungeville nods.

"Okay. Info first, so I can confirm I'm not screwing up, or something."

Loungeville nods again. "Fair enough. I have a... she might as well be a sister, considering how close we are. I have a sister who lives in Albion. She runs an orphanage by herself, so I send her money to help make things easier. Earned a reputation in the process, but that's how it goes, isn't it?"

"Yeah, sounds about right. Okay. Hold these for me?" I ask as I hand her my glasses. "Okay, watch and learn."

I turn on death perception, and look at the door and see where the lines of death are. Geez, so much death whenever I name things. Death perception, lines of death, angel of death and so on. Am I going to name my dog Death Bringer just to keep death in the title? ... I should make a note of that name.

Either way, I grip my knife and get to work on the door, cutting it where the lines tell me too. Since I have yet to meet a door that has put up a fight, the door falls apart into pieces, revealing the treasury. I turn around, deactivate death perception and curtsy.

"Ta-da!" I say, as I take my glasses back from the completely astonished Ms. Loungville.

"How did you do that?" she asks, still not quite believing what she just saw.

"Well, I took this knife, put it into the door, and sort of cut it away," I explain. "I thought it was a little obvious. Anyway, which ones the staff of get-rich-quick? The box on the pedestal in the middle of the room, right?" If it's so powerful, why are they keeping it at a school where kids are present, right there out in the open? Common sense isn't a magical trait I guess.

I walk into the treasury, pick up the box and toss it to Loungeville, who barely manages to catch it.

"Um... can you fix that door?" I ask as I walk out. "It'd be a bit weird if the faculty walks by and sees all the evidence we left behind."

"Might not be as good as before, but fixing the door shouldn't be too hard. Just give me a moment.

And so Loungeville chanted some long winded spell that ended with the door being replaced or something. By that point my exhaustion was catching up to me, so my attention was kind of waning.

"Well, alls well that ends well," I say as I suppress a yawn. "See ya."

"Before you go, one last question," Loungeville says. "How'd you know I was lying when I said I came to catalogue the treasury?"

I shrug. "I've heard and used much better excuses that are far less transparent. Oddly enough my personal favorite, 'escort him off the premises,' always manages to work. Anyway, tell your sister I wish her the best of luck with that orphanage."

"Will do," Loungeville says with a smile. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Seriously, don't. You get caught and say I helped then I go to jail too.

Either way, like I mentioned, being out this late is finally starting to catch up to me. After dragging myself to Louise's room, I get into my sleep attire and proceed to collapse and lose consciousness on the floor right next to the bed. Close enough.

***Scene Break***

"OW! Son of a bitch!" is the first thing out of my mouth when I woke up the next morning. Mostly because when Louise hopped out of her bed that morning, she managed to find a reasonably soft piece of padding to land on. Unfortunately, that piece of padding happened to be something that could voice the fact that it doesn't like being stepped on.

"Jocelyn! What are you doing on the floor?" Louise asks as she helps pull me up.

"Was out late last night walking around, got tired, ran out of energy the second I walked through the door," I explain as I pull my glasses back on before looking for my skirt.

"Why were you out so late at night?"

"Walking. Getting a lay of the land, things like that," I tell her. "Helped an old lady cross the street. You know, basic stuff."

"Is that some kind of sarcastic confession?" Louise asks.

"What could I be confessing to?" I wonder aloud. "Not like I did anything illegal. Don't gimme that look. Nothing I did last night broke any laws."

"You're filling me with confidence in you right now," Louise tells me dryly.

I frown. "Don't do that."

"Don't do what?"

"Snarky comments don't suit you."

"Not a fan of sarcasm?" Louise asks.

"On the contrary, I love it. I love it when I use it. Not so much when people around me use it. Hypocrisy, I know. I have my reasons," I tell her.

Louise pauses as if to think about pressing further, but decides against it. "Let's just go to class."

After Louise got into her school uniform, we headed for her first class. Funnily enough, our route took us right past the treasury. The treasury where a shit-ton of faculty were situated.

"Wh-what's with all the people?" Louise wonders. "Did something happen?"

"Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with us. We should leave them be," I tell Louise.

We move to take a step to move along and go to class, when I was stopped by Mr. Colbert.

"Excuse me, Ms. Jocelyn?"

"Yeeeeah?" I ask, purposely dragging the syllable.

"I heard from a few people that you were up and about last night," _again, yeeeeeeah?_ "Did you happen to see anything suspicious?"

"Suspicious how? Anything I should be thinking over specifically?"

"Early this morning when a faculty member came to check the treasury, we noticed a few inconsistencies with how the treasury was yesterday, so we opened it up to see if anything had happened," Colbert explains, "Unfortunately, a rather important artifact was stolen from the treasury-"

"Wh-"

I interrupt Louise's interruption by covering her mouth with my hand. I motion with my free hand for Colbert to continue. He nods.

"As I was saying, something was stolen and the thief left no note or indication, so we have no way of knowing who it is."

"Well, duh. What thief worth their shadow would leave a note saying they stole something!" I exclaim. "That's like an assassin leaving a note saying 'oh yeah, I killed (insert name here). Love, Jocelyn.' That's just stupid."

"So you haven't seen anything?" Louise deduces from my rant.

"Nah, not really," I say with a shrug. "I was kind of exhausted last night, so details are fuzzy, but I might have seen someone wearing a black hood walking around a bit."

There. A completely generic and truthful description. Can't get anything from it, and it doesn't seem like I'm hiding anything. That should throw them off her trail a-

"Hmmm."

I'm interrupted from my though train by Colbert pondering. Sorry, you don't have anywhere near enough beard to ponder that much. Maybe the headmaster dude I caught a glimpse of once, but certainly not Colbert.

"A black hood. Could it be Fouquet?"

"... I'm sorry, what?" I ask, honestly shocked at the conversation this is going.

"A black hood is the mark that Fouquet is best known for," Colbert explains.

"Are hoods really that rare?" I ask. "Hell, he wears a hoodie all the time. If he wore his hood up would anyone think he's Fouquet just because of that?" I shake my head. "No, his jacket is white, not black. Hmm. He might be able to make a black jacket work though..."

"Is there a point to your rambling?" Louise asks.

"Yes, believe it or not," I say with a nod. "The point is, a hood is nothing to go on. Observe."

I pull the hood on my jacket over my head.

"Ta-da! I am now apparently Fouquet!" I say dryly as I put my hands in my jacket pockets. "Hoods are an easy and not very unique way of hiding details such as hair color, length and can put a shadow over your face to obscure that as well. I should know."

"You need to hide your face a lot?" Louise asks.

"Not so much now that I'm here," I tell her as I pull my hood back off. "Either way, we'll keep an eye on things and see if we come across anything super fancy or suspicious, okay Mr. Colbert?"

Colbert ponders, then shakes his head. "No, this doesn't concern you two. Please forget I asked about it. Thank you for your cooperation. You two should get to class now."

And so Colbert shooed us off to head for first period. Once we were out of eye and earshot Louise turns to me.

"You know more then you told him, don't you?" Louise asks.

"It was that obvious?" I ask, once again putting my hands in my jacket pockets as I walk forward.

"Then why didn't you say anything!" Louise yells at me. "You could have helped them catch a thief who stole an important artifact!"

"And you know it's important, how?" I counter. "To them, everything in there is important. That's why it's in the treasury. That doesn't necessarily mean it's important. I can vouch for that. Besides, the thief's nice enough."

"You actually met him?" Louise asks.

"Yep. Talked with 'em and everything. Nice person. That's why I'm fine with letting them walk away scot-free." I'm careful to use gender-neutral words to give away as little as possible.

"How can you be sure whatever they told you wasn't some lie to get you to trust them?" Louise asks accusingly.

"Like I told you, I see myself as a good judge of character. Besides, she totes had a blue aura."

Louise seems confused. "Blue aura?"

"I'd have asked about 'totes' first off, but that just me," I say with a shrug. "And like I said, I'm good at telling friends and enemies apart. Ah well. The past is the past. Focus on the now, right?" Accept this other piece of hypocrisy from me and let's go to class.

Louise doesn't seem convinced, but seems to realize that I'm not dropping any more details about the subject, so she drops the subject and we head to class for another "exciting" day of learning at the academy. Oooooooh Jooooooooooy. I really need to stop elongating my vowels.

***Dreamscape***

The surrounding area was naught but ruins. Ruins everywhere. I honestly don't think there was a single building still standing. Oh wait! Here's one! Oh, wait. I just knocked it over. How much abuse has the building taken to fall apart at a single touch? And where is this place? I'm getting a vague sense of deja vu from this place, but I can't recognize a place that's nothing but ruins! I guess I should look around some more. Maybe find some clues, or at least someone.

As I walk among the wreckage, I observe the surroundings. The ground's nothing but dirt and weeds, as if vegetation hadn't grown in a decade, probably more. I don't think this is a ruined town, more like a castle. Too much brick to be a village given this world's similarity to a certain time period back home. A castle seems likely, especially given what looks like a wall of sort surrounding everything. Well, what's left of a wall. It's nighttime as well, the two crescent moons hanging low in the sky. Crescent moons that illuminate a still standing 10 foot high part of the wall. Lying on her back on top of the wall was a girl. No, she seems too old for that nomenclature. Definitely a woman.

The woman was wearing a red tank top paired with a set of tattered jeans that almost looked ready to fall apart. In her left hand she had a butterfly knife that she was twirling and doing tricks with. The amount of grace she shows as the blade spins around clearly states that she's no amateur when it comes to wielding a blade. Maybe if I practice I can get that good one day. She had short brown hair that she wore loose. By short, I mean short. It barely came down to her neck, compared to mine which came down to my back. However, I was more concerned with her eyes. Or rather, the bandages she had wrapped around her head that kept me from seeing her eyes.

"Sorry, but I don't recall reading any fashion magazines saying the bandage blindfold was popular," I tell her. "Or did I miss something?"

The woman keeps twirling her knife, the only sign she heard me being the smirk that's playing across her lips.

"Never said it was to look good," the woman tells me. "Got my eyes screwed up pretty bad, so I wear these. You know, like how some blind people wear dark sunglasses so you can't see their eyes? Couldn't find any of those, so I got these instead."

"So you're blind?"

"More or less," she confirms. Her head tilts to the side in my general direction. "I can't see you right now, if that's what you're wondering."

I open my mouth, but she beats me to it.

"Removing the bandages wouldn't help on that front," she tells me preemptively. "Next question?"

"Name?"

"Most people these days call me Angel, so I guess you can call me that too," she tells me.

"Nice to meet you Angel. Name's Jocelyn."

Angel gives a sort of grunt in reply and returns her attention to her knife twirling. "You helped a renowned criminal you know."

"... Yeeeeeeah, and?"

"I thought it was interesting," _Not interesting enough to actually pay attention to who you're talking to, I see._ "See, the second I heard it was a thief, I would have probably killed them. You choose to hear her out. Why?"

"I'm not one to kill without reason," I reply. "If I don't keep some kind of line perfectly clear and written, I'm no better then the people I've chosen to kill."

"Ha!" Angel laughs. "That's good. After everything you still hold onto a code of sorts. I'd applaud, but I have a knife on hand, so that wouldn't work too well, would it?"

Let's ignore that you can put the knife down. I still have another question.

"Did you do all this?"

Angel stops twirling her knife and looks in my direction. "Excuse me?"

"All this dead ground and ruins. Did you do it?" I ask again.

Angel sits up and swings her legs over the side so she can face me. "What gives you that idea?"

"You're the only one here," I point out. "And I just got here, so it was already like it when I got here and I can't be blamed."

"And who's to say the same doesn't hold true for me?" Angel says, a corner of her mouth quirking upward. "Maybe I just wandered into this wasteland and thought I'd stay a bit and enjoy the peace and quiet. It's preferable to the noise that people tend to make."

"Well you're the only one here, and you do have a knife, so I thought I'd see if I could get something out of you."

"Like a knife could do this," Angel says in an odd tone of voice. It sounded like even she didn't believe that. I respond by simply remaining silent. Angel sighs, then slides off the wall, landing on the ground in front of me. She walks up to me and points the knife at my face. "Maybe you're the one not saying everything. Who's to say this is the first time you've been here? Maybe you did all this."

"... I think I'd remember destroying a whole castle," I remark.

Angel laughs. "Who said this was a castle? Hint: it isn't."

"And how do you know what it is?" I ask, doing my best to stare past the bandages and into her eyes.

"Because I was here when the place was still standing," Angel says as she removes the blade from my personal space. "Some good memories here."

"You don't seem like the kind of person whose idea of a good memory is something I'd want to know," I tell her.

Angel shrugs. "Who knows? I can't even remember them. I just remember I had them. Ten years is a long time, you know?"

"Wish I could so easily forget something," I remark almost wistfully.

"Well it's a gift. Some got it, some don't," Angel tells me, as she turns around and heads back to her wall. She uses her knife as a sort of handheld to climb up and gets up to the top where she lies back down on her back and stares up at the stars. "Don't think about it too hard. Just take a load off and sleep on it."

"Will do. ... I'll probably be seeing you again, won't I?" I ask.

"Who knows?" Angel says, showing an air of not giving a crap. "Maybe, maybe not. What'll happen in the future is something I never concerned myself with."

"Right. See ya, Angel."

"Good bye, Jocelyn."

Partings out of the way, I turn around and walk back into the wasteland, leaving the mysterious woman behind on top of the wall, spinning her blade around without a care in the world.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author Notes:**

I'm not really too pleased with this chapter. I don't really feel like I got anything established or accomplished, just another plot thread taken from the novels. Whatever. Not like the light novel's plot will matter past next chapter, so let's move on.

First off, I took a small liberty with the Gandalfar powers. Well, two if you count Wardes' broken sword activating the runes. Firstly, I know the runes don't speed up the familiar's perception, it was just something I thought'd be kind of cool. I mean why not? It speed's everything else up, so why shouldn't it enhance the brain's ability to notice everything else around it thus creating the illusion of the world moving slowly? I thought it'd be cool.

In regards to Jocelyn being able to kill the lightning spell... Well why not? Shiki Tohno apparently killed magic at one point, and Shiki Ryougi kills ghosts/spirits in the first Garden of Sinners/Kara no Kyoukai movie, so why not? Also I guess I should point out that in using an ever so slightly modified Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, I'm kind of stealing more from Garden of Sinners/Kara no Kyoukai then I am from Tsukihime. Not that it matters, but I just thought I'd point that out. I think that's about all I feel the need to comment on. See you next time.

**Chapter 3**

Things progressed pretty normally after that whole thing with the theft and everything. Apparently Ms. Loungeville thought ahead, as she had already had given her letter of resignation prior to her absconding with the staff of get-rich-quick. As such, even though she had left not to long after the thievery, very little suspicion was cast on her. Gotta hand it to her, she knows what she's doing. If she really is that Fouquet or whatever Colbert said the thief's name was, then I guess it comes as no surprise given the fact that you don't build a reputation like that unless you deserve it.

Anyway, it was late at night, and I was busy trying to sleep. Key word trying. Had that dream again, but woke up a little early, so it's proving a bit difficult to sleep. This however turned out to be a masterstroke of luck, as in my not-quite-asleepness, I was able to hear someone knocking on the door without it waking me up! ... I'm far too happy about that. Meh, I'll dissect that thought later.

I stand up, put on my glasses and grab my knife. I walk over to the door and open it up. What I found was a girl standing there wearing a hood that covered most of her face making it hard to make out details. She seemed a little surprised to see me, so I made the first move.

"Name, occupation, and reason for being here at this time of hour?" I ask in as formal a tone as I can, resisting the urge to ask for spare cash, credit cards and social security number. That scam won't work here.

She hesitates. "Henrietta, princess, and um... I though this was Louise's room."

... What's a princess want with the little mistress?

"Well, Ms. Monarch Jr. Gimme a second to get properly dressed and wake the little mistress up. Please wait here a moment."

Henrietta nods. I walk over to a corner of the room, grab my skirt and pull it on. Now that I'm as dressed as I can be for such an occasion, I walk over to the bed and poke Louise with the hilt of my knife.

"Louise, there's someone here to see you. Wanna get up and not be rude to our guests?"

"Muuu... Go away, it's too early..." Louise mutters in her sleep.

"Got it," I say with a nod of my head. "Sorry Princess, Louise says it's too early and you should go away," I say in a louder voice.

Louise's eyes snap open and she bolts to her feet and turns to Henrietta, who's removed her hood to reveal a head of purple hair and a small tiara on top of it. Louise starts panicking, then kneels down.

"I apologize Princess. Please forgive me for my failure to act as I should in your presence," Louise says to her.

"... I'm not going to apologize for not doing that," I say with my hands behind my head. "Sorry, but I'm kiiiiiinda not used to respecting a monarchy."

"Louise, please stand up. Childhood friends are exempt for the usual rules," Henrietta tells Louise with a smile, as she helps Louise to her feet.

A question mark hangs itself over my head, but I hold off for a bit. Louise needs to respond to that. Now, how do you counter?

"Even so, it is only proper, isn't it?" Louise asks.

Laaaaaame. Well, question time.

"Sorry, but I need to ask. Louise, you and the princess are childhood friends?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I don't believe I caught your name... Or who you are and why you're here," Henrietta adds quickly.

"Name's Jocelyn. I'm the familiar of Strawberry over here," I say with a gesture to Louise before showing off my runes.

Henrietta's face lights up. "Louise, you did it! I knew you could," she adds as she gives Louise a hug.

"Th-thank you princess. You're far too kind."

And far too likely to trigger someone's yuri fangirl instincts. ... Like mine. I'll resist my instincts as long as possible.

"I must apologize to you Jocelyn," Henrietta says as she lets go of Louise and looked at me. "You see, when you opened the door and in that state of undress... I may have gotten a mistaken idea or two."

"Well since this job didn't give me much time to pack, I didn't have pajamas or anything, so that's the only comfortable way I can sleep," I say with a shrug. "And it's okay. Not the first time something like that's happen. Remind me later to tell you about that time me and my friend went to Comic-con."

Boy, that was fun. I like cons. Some of my fondest and weirdest memories come from things like that. My friend was nervous at hell with all the people around, but she got over it quickly enough and had a blast. She probably enjoyed it more then I did.

"Wait, we digressed," I note. "How do you two know each other? Childhood friends or something?"

"I was the royal playmate for the princess and her sister," Louise explains.

"You have a sister?" Henrietta nods. "Older or younger?"

"Two years younger. As such, we don't have to worry much about any disputes for the throne," Henrietta says.

"That's nice. And Louise was your playmate?" I ask for confirmation.

Louise nods. "I've known Henrietta and Annette since I was six years old. For reference, I'm sixteen now."

I give a low whistle. "A decade of being best friends with a future monarch. See I like this because it means I finally know a monarch I don't need to kill."

Henrietta and Louise stare at me. It takes me a second to catch onto why the conversation stopped.

"Oh, uh... Sorry. Did I never mention that? Before landing into this line of work I was an assassin. Killed a monarch or two. Um... D-don't worry, I'm not going to kill you!"

"That's... That's reassuring," Henrietta forces out with an equally forced smile. "What an interesting familiar you've summoned."

"That's one word for it," Louise mutters. "A-anyway, Princess. What are you doing here so late?"

"Oh! Right! I almost forgot," Henrietta admits. "Louise, I came to ask a favor of you."

"Anything," Louise responds.

"Um... Where to begin?" Henrietta wonders aloud.

"The beginning seems as good a place as any," I offer.

"Right. Yes, of course," Henrietta says with a nod. "Well there's no easy way to say this. I'm getting married."

There's a brief pause.

"Meaningggggggg?" I ask.

"Jocelyn, don't be rude!" Louise growls at me. "Let the princess finish."

"Proceed," I say as I gesture for the princess to continue.

"You see, I'm getting married to the emperor of Germania," Henrietta says.

"Those barbarians?!" Louise asks angrily. "Why?"

"Politics, probably," I say with a shrug. "Either to solidify an alliance, or something else."

"What do you mean something else?" Louise asks.

"How old's the baby?" I ask, a mocking smirk on my face.

Henrietta blushes an insanely deep shade of red, and Louise seems ready to slap me.

"T-That's not it!" Henrietta insists. "It's for the alliance and the alliance only! I don't have any kids!"

"How dare you insinuate the princess had an affair with someone!" Louise tells me.

"It was a joke! A joke!" I say as I hold my hands up in a defensive posture. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Apologies aren't enough!" Louise tells me.

"L-Louise, calm down," Henrietta tries. "She apologized, did she not?"

"Still, to even joke about something like that," Louise starts pouting.

"What, jealous of Henrietta's future husband?" I ask.

Now it's Louise's turn to blush a nice shade of strawberry red. Unlike last time however, she channels her embarrassment into giving me the cold shoulder as opposed to blowing up at me.

"Stupid familiar," Louise tells me. "Fine. Spout off whatever nonsense you wish. I'll just have to learn to become adept at ignoring you."

"... That wasn't a denial," I observe.

"Then I'll provide you with one. You are completely wrong," Louise tells me.

"Pfft. You're no fun," I tell her. "Anyway, I think we were going somewhere with this?" I ask, prompting the princess to get back on track.

"Ah, right. Like I was saying, I have been arranged to be married to the ruler of Germania," the princess reiterates. "However, my heart belongs to another. No, that person isn't in the room at the moment, Miss Jocelyn."

"I wasn't going to try and imply it was Louise!" I say defensively. "And no, that wasn't a confession of my attempt to do just that."

Louise, true to her earlier statements, ignores me.

"So who's the lucky guy?" I ask the princess.

"That would be Wales Tudor, the crown prince of Albion," Henrietta says.

... How the shit are the Tudors here? That makes no sense. I mean, it could be a coincidence, but... no wait, that's probably it exactly.

"Wales?" Louise asks to clarify, to which Henrietta nods. "Okay, so what do you want me-"

"Us."

"Us to do?" Louise corrects.

"I... may or may not have sent a rather embarrassing letter to Wales a while back," Henrietta admits sheepishly. "A letter where I kind of swore to love him for the rest of my life." Henrietta clears her throat to try and get past the embarrassment. "Ignoring how embarrassing it is, it is also a rather dangerous letter. If Germania were to find out about, I'd likely be accused of various different things, the marriage would be canceled and the alliance would be called off. That wouldn't be very good."

"An alliance killed before it could even form, all because of a piece of paper with ink on it," I observe.

"Annette did try to talk me out of sending the letter in case something like this were to happen," Henrietta says with a light chuckle. "She was always better at thinking ahead then I am."

"Okay, so you want us to go to Albion, wherever that is, track down the monarch, and find the letter?" Henrietta nods. "Then what? Do we... I dunno, burn the letter or something?" I ask.

"Why would we burn the princess's love letter?" Louise asks me. So much for ignoring me.

"I mean... the letter could kill an alliance, right? If it exists, the alliance is in jeopardy," _and not the game show,_ "whereas if it doesn't exist then what do we lose? It's not like if the letter doesn't exist then suddenly Wales'll hate Henrietta. People don't quite work that way, which is good for us."

Henrietta pauses, as if contemplating. "Very well. As soon as you get the letter, destroy it. Just... please don't do it in front of Wales, if possible."

"Yeah, that's probably for the best," I admit. "Don't want him getting the wrong idea or anything. Okay, so when do we start all this?"

"We'll do it as soon as possible!" Louise says.

"That works too."

"Thank you," Henrietta says. "I've already arranged for transportation. It should be here in a few days. I've also arranged an escort of sorts. He's a griffon knight, so you shouldn't need to worry about any potential dangers along the way."

Me and Louise share a glance. A silent _"No shit we don't have to worry about dangers,"_ passes between us.

"Yeah, an escort'll help," I say.

"Thank you for you consideration Princess," Louise says with a small bow.

"I await the best of news from you two," Henrietta says with a smile. "Good luck. And Jocelyn?"

"Yes?" I ask.

"Would you mind if I had a word with you?"

"Go ahead."

...

"I meant, alone," Henrietta clarifies.

"Oh! Right. Let's just step out of here," I say as I open the door and lead her out. "Louise, if you eavesdrop on us I'll cut the bands on all your underwear."

"You wouldn't," Louise says, embarrassment clear on her face.

"Try me," I say with a smirk as I close the door behind me and the princess. "So you were saying?"

"Just a personal favor I wanted to ask of you," Henrietta says to me. "I know I already gave that thing about an escort to keep you safe and everything, but that's only for this mission. After that the escort won't be necessary. The point I'm trying to get to is, I'd like to to keep looking after Louise."

"... Familiar, kind of locked into the job here," I tell her as I show her my runes.

"I know, but please hear me out," Henrietta tells me. "Louise is a precious friend of mine. I would do anything I could to make sure she's safe. However, I'm a princess and next in line for the throne, so I can't always be there. You however, can always be there for Louise. Please promise me you'll do whatever you can to keep her safe."

"I planned on it," I tell her. "Ignoring the fact that it's now technically my job, I do my best to keep as many people safe as possible. It's just nice to once again have a single person to focus that on."

That doesn't escape Henrietta's attention.

"Once again?" she asks.

Crap.

"I'm a time traveler who's been doing this for hundreds of years," I explain dryly. "My real name is Homura and I've contracted with a fairy for the chance to do this over again as many times as possible until everyone lives. I've been at this a while, you see."

Henrietta chuckles. "Well, very well then. Please keep Louise safe, Homura." Henrietta tries to stifle a giggle, then finally stops trying to hold it in and giggles madly.

"That was kind of over the top, wasn't it?" I remark, ignoring the fact that Homura isn't very funny.

"Very much so," Henrietta confirms. "But thank you. I needed that. I leave Louise in your care. Goodbye Ms. Jocelyn."

"See ya princess," I say with a wave of my hand.

Henrietta puts her hood back up, then goes off. I turn around and look at the door, then give it a good solid punch.

"Aaah!" Followed by a thud is the sound that comes from the other side of the door.

I open the door and step in to the sight of Louise sitting on the floor looking like she just fell over. Out eyes meet and there's silence for a minute.

"I didn't hear anything so it doesn't count as eavesdropping," Louise tries to defend herself with.

"I'm perfectly willing to believe that."

"Really?" Louise asks hopefully.

"Nope."

***Scene Break***

"Crap, where's the escort?" I wonder aloud as Louise and I wait by our horse at the gate of the academy. "He didn't leave ahead of us because we were late, did he?"

"We wouldn't be late if _someone_ didn't force me to ride all the way to town to buy new clothing!" Louise yells at me.

"Ah, don't try to be subtle while blaming yourself," I tell her. "You can come out and admit it's all your fault."

"How is it my fault!" Louise demands.

"I don't recall eavesdropping on the conversation between an ex-assassin and a princess, do you?" I ask. "Granted I might have done that, but I have no way of knowing if they were an ex or not."

"I'm sure you have so many exes," Louise replies dryly.

I respond by flicking her in the forehead.

"H-hey! What was that for?" Louise asks as she rubs her forehead.

"I told you, snarky comments don't suit you," I explain. "As such, negative reinforcement is in order."

"How do you come to that conclusion?" Louise asks.

"... Insane troll logic?" I offer. "Hey, I make things up as I go along. Sometimes it works and I come up with perfectly coherent and well-thought out replies. Other times..." I trail off with a shrug.

"Other times not so much, is it?" An unfamiliar voice asks.

I turn and take in the details of our newest guest party member. Damn he looks old. Well, maybe not. He looks like he's in his twenties, just going by the face, but the fact that his hair is all silvery white... Nah, that's giving him too much credit. His hair is grey and makes him look old. He's dressed up suitably old fashioned as well. To be fair, given this world's similarities to a different time in my world, that could technically be more in style then old fashioned. His hat's still stupid.

"So what's up Three Musketeers?" I ask him. "You the escort, or just some old guy passing by to see some girls in school uniforms?"

The guy doesn't even blink at my comments. Instead he just smiles, removes his hat and gives a brief bow.

"The former. A pleasure to meet you. I am Viscount Wardes."

"Viscount? Name or rank?" I ask.

"Rank, of course," he replies as he returns his hat to its proper position.

"How fancy, someone with such a rank escorting us," I comment. I remove my glasses and give a slight bow, mimicking the Viscount's earlier gesture. "Jocelyn. Nice to meet you."

"That's it? No family name?" He ask, seemingly genuinely curious.

"Same can be said to you," I comment as I put my glasses back on. "No need for either of us to give either, isn't that right? What do I gain from knowing your last name, and what do you earn by learning my last name?"

Wardes considers this for a second. He smiles and nods once. "You are most certainly correct."

Come to think of it, Louise hasn't said anything.

"Oi, Louise. What's with the silent act?" I ask.

Louise, instead of answering, simply stares at the floor. Hey, is she blushing? Geez, Louise, he's not that hot. This whole, "love at first sight" thing doesn't even exist, so I think you'll be fine.

"Ah, how is my little Louise doing?" Wardes asks as he walks over to her.

"My? Little? How?" The words just sort of pop out in no particular order. "Explain?"

"M-me and the Viscount..." Louise pauses, then sighs. "We are engaged."

...

"Just break my heart some more why don't you?" I say in mock sadness. "Oh, and after you kiss me and share a bed with me multiple nights in a row! Did it mean nothing to you? Because it meant the world to me!"

Louise's gaze snaps right up from the floor to me, and shifts into a death glare at some point in between. Her face also gains a nice shade of color or two.

"S-s-stupid familiar!" Louise yells at me. "Don't say such lies that can be easily misunderstood?"

I grin. "Oh, so you didn't summon me and the, ehem, 'complete the contract?' And we haven't been sharing a bed the past few nights?"

"That was to complete the contract!" Louise insists, repeating what I had said. "It was necessary! And there's only one bed!"

"Ha! An admission!" I say with triumph. "Aaaaaaaand I'm done. Whew. Okay, that's enough teasing for one day."

Louise seems confused. Hmmm, okay, maybe a little more, wrapped up in explanation.

"You're adorable when you're flustered," I tell her. "Provoking you and getting that cute side out is the highlight of my day."

Louise blushes some more. "Stupid familiar," she grumbles. "Whatever. Let's get this mission over with as soon as possible."

"Awesome! Wait. Can the horse hold three people?" I wonder aloud.

Wardes chuckles in good nature, which instantly makes me suspicious of him. It's the fact that laughing in good nature seemed rather forced. Still, the princess trusts him enough to go get a love letter back, and he and Louise are set to be married so he can't be that bad.

"Don't worry, my familiar is a Griffon," Wardes explains.

"Oh yeah, well my patronus is a charizard, so beat that!" I say with gusto as I point a finger at him.

There's a brief silence as Wardes and Louise let that process.

"What?" they voice at the same time.

"Geez, tough crowd," I say as I put my hands behind my head. "Forget it. Just a double reference no one here will ever get. So I take it Wardes'll ride the griffon?"

Wardes nods. "Yes, my and Louise will ride my familiar."

Louise stiffens up at the declaration. I simply go over to the horse we have here and stare it in the eye.

"Are you alright with that?" I ask the horse. "Do you like me enough to let me ride you? If so, nod or shake your head," I say as I point at the horse.

It tries to bite me.

"Foal of a bitch just tried to eat me!" I declare as I draw my knife. "This means war you little dick!"

Before I can start a knife fight with the horse, Louise comes up and grabs me by the arm.

"No. Bad Familiar. No killing the horse," she tells me very calmly.

"It tried to eat me!" I argue.

"Don't wave your finger in front of it," Louise says calmly.

"... Tch. You win this round Hidalgo," I tell the horse as I put my knife away.

Louise turns to Wardes. "I'm sorry Viscount, but I must decline your offer. I'm worried if I don't go with these two, one of them will eat the other."

"I'd never eat a horse!" I try to defend myself. "Horses taste like glue."

The horse huffs in agreement.

"Shut it Seabiscuit."

"I understand," Wardes says with a wry smile.

After the conversation ends, Wardes mounts his griffon (a _freaking awesome_ beast, might I add) and Louise hops on the horse. The same horse I'm glaring at.

"Can you two try to put your antagonism behind you?" Louise asks. "This trip is going to be long enough as is, please don't make it longer."

Me and the horse glare at each other for a little longer.

"Fine," I say as I hop on horse and sit right behind Louise. The horse huffs in annoyance.

"Shut it Boxer."

***Scene Break***

"Soooooo," I begin, desperate for conversation to make the long horse ride less torturous then it is. "You and Wardes? How'd that happen?"

"It was arranged by my parents," Louise says, tone indicating that she really doesn't want to talk about it. "It was thought that since I was... Lacking in magic, if I was married into a strong, well-off family that it wouldn't matter."

"When was it arranged?" I ask. "A year ago? Maybe two?"

"When I was six," Louise says.

"WHAT?! Oh god, rough terrain, don't let me fall," I get out as I tighten my grip on Louise.

"H-hey! Watch where you're grabbing!"

"I don't care! I play the 'we're both girls' card! I hate horses!" I yell out. Eventually the terrain smoothes out and I calm down enough to slightly relax my grip on Louise and to open my eyes again. "Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Freak out over. Bad horse riding experience when I was six. Fell off and then the thing kicked me in the ribs. Speaking of six, you were engaged that young?"

Louise nods. "Yes. Most arranged marriages are set up around that age. Obviously none of them are actually married until they're much older, usually 16 or higher."

"Aren't you sixteen?" I ask.

Louise pauses, as if the thought had just occurred to her. "Y-yeah, I guess I am. Why do you ask?"

"Don't marry Wardes. I don't trust him," I tell her.

"What! Why not? The princess herself entrusted him with this mission!" Louise exclaims.

"He wanted to take you away from me and make me ride this monster myself," I tell her. "Don't leave me alone with this freaking horse."

Louise is silent. Then she starts snickering.

"Hey! I'm serious here!" I try to explain.

"I know! That's what's so hilarious!" Louise gets out between giggles. "For all your talk about being able to kill anything, you still get scared of bad dreams and can't stand horses. It's just too funny!"

"Well... Well shut up!" I counter. "My dreams are utterly terrifying! And spooooooooooky. They'd scare the skirt off of you! Though given the direction our relationship is currently in, I probably won't need to do much to get you out of that skirt all things considered."

There's a pause as the conversation stops.

"I'd hit you for that comment, but considering your current state, you could fall off and you would start completely panicking. That wouldn't help your horse phobia," Louise says.

"Thank you sooooo much, Louise," I tell her as I turn my grip on her into a hug.

"Don't hug so tightly. Horses are hard to control."

"Right, sorry."

***Scene Break***

"Oh my god, I never thought I'd be so happy to be on dirt again," I say as I proceed to lie down on the currently not moving ground and start making a dirt angel. "Solid ground, don't ever leave me again."

We technically weren't at our destination yet, just a cliffy corridor of sorts that lead to it. We were, however, close enough to walk, and the horse was too tired to go on, so we elected to walk the rest of the way.

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Wardes tells me. "We will need to take a ship if we intend to fly to Albion."

"Hey, I'm fine with flying," I explain. "Much easier to deal with. Wait. Fly?"

"Oh, did we neglect to mention?" Wardes asks. "Albion is a floating continent."

"Now you tell me," I complain. "Ah well. Still awesome. Always wanted to see a flying island. Sounds interesting."

Then I stiffen up. I slowly get back to my feet and scan the area. I grab my knife and bring it out, keeping my eyes on the surrounding area.

"Jocelyn, what is it?" Louise asks.

"Nobody panic. We're about to be assaulted by bandits," I tell them.

"Bandits?" Wardes asks. "Are you sure? I don't see anyone."

"Of course not. They wouldn't be very good bandits if you could see them before the attacked," I explain. "There!"

I swing my knife, barely managing to hit an arrow fired at me, deflecting it into the ground next to me. I trace the path the arrow took to me and see a bunch of bandits up on one of the cliffs surrounding the area we're in.

"How are we supposed to get them?" Louise asks.

"Buy me some time to chant a spell and-"

"Louise, catch!" I interrupt Wardes as I toss my glasses to Louise, who barely manages to catch them.

I turn on Death Perception and run up to the cliff they're on top of. The lines are here, here and here. I cut along the lines, killing the cliff face, causing the cliff to start crumbling, with the bandits on top of it.

"Everyone back up!" I yell at Louise and Wardes as the avalanche comes down. The rocks tumble down, with the bandits doing their best to not be crush by it. I said it was a cliff, but it really wasn't that high up. As such, it was an easily survivable tumble, especially since the rocks did a lot to slow their descent. All it did however, was delay the inevitable. The inevitable being that they had shot at our little group with intent to kill and were fast approaching me.

Eventually the avalanche finishes up as much as it could, and the bandits do their best to crawl out of the rubble. Seven of them. They all crawl out and get onto solid ground. I point my knife at them.

"Any particular reason you want us dead, or are you just looking for some cash to loot off some corpses?" I ask.

One of them, I assume the leader, speaks up. "Like we need to tell you."

I smirk. "Perfect. I'll kill you last. People are more likely to talk when they fear for their life, after all."

The bandit laughs. "Boys, get her."

"Joecelyn!" Louise cries out. "Be careful!"

"You're not going to try and provide assistance?" Wardes wonders in complete confusion.

"She doesn't need it," Louise replies.

I ignore the two for now and focus on the seven in front of me. They're all armed with sword, but the leader also has a crossbow. Interesting. They all charge at me at once.

No matter what you're capable of, fighting multiple opponents at a time is disadvantageous. Isolate each incident, take on as few at one time as possible. Wait, that's in normal circumstances. I have death vision. Death vision that is highlighting all these bandits in a nice bright enemy color. Maybe I'll make this less embarrassing on them and not use my knife to kill all of them.

The first bandit to close the distance between me and them take a swing at me with his sword. I dodge to the lower left, and slice the line going across his wrist, causing his hand holding the sword to fall off. The man freezes up as his mind registers that he just lost his hand. I take that moment put away my knife and pry the sword from his former hand's grip. As soon as I grab the sword, everything stops.

Okay, maybe that's not the most accurate way to describe it. Everything is still very clearly moving, just incredibly slowly. A strange glow draws my attention and I see that the runes on my left hand are glowing. Weird. Either way, I grip the sword and swing at the line across the bandit's chest. I slice cleanly through, bisecting the man, then stumble as I try to stop the swing. Okay, everything's moving super slowly, but I still move regular speed. That threw me off for a second. Maybe everything's not moving slowly, I'm just perceiving it at an accelerated rate? Given the fact that I'm still moving at what appears to be normal speed, it's likely that my body is also moving at an accelerated rate. Wow. Game breaker.

Okay, normally this is where I'd describe me taking the other seven guards out, but... It was over way too quickly to be entertaining. Considering how fast I was moving, or how slow they seemed to be moving either or whatever, they couldn't even put up a fight. The first one was taken out when I cut his skull in half. The second I stabbed through the heart. The third had his limbs all cut off, then finished with a stab to the throat. The fourth was stabbed through the head. The fifth was rather messily decapitated. I'm still getting used to the fact that I'm not moving as slowly as they are. The sixth was bisected diagonally from the right shoulder to the left hip. The final one was bisected vertically, from right between the legs up to his head.

"Feh. Over far too quickly," I remark as I drop the sword onto the ground. "Hmmm."

I grab my knife and look at my runes. The runes have their own lines. I'd hate for things to be that easy. Then again, there's no way of knowing what'd happen if I killed the contract between me and Louise. Maybe she'd just kick me off into the streets for being useless to her. Then again...

My thought process is interrupted by the sound of retching behind me. I turn around and see Louise off to the side, expelling all contents contained within her stomach. I look at the aftermath of the fight with the bandits. Yeesh, I don't blame her. Clean up's going to be a bitch. Well... Well let's just move on. I walk over to Louise and put a hand on her shoulder.

"You okay there?" I ask.

"Yeah..." She vomits up a bit more. "No. No I'm not."

"The one time we need a bucket. Come on. Hold onto me," I tell her. "Let's see if we can walk to where we need to go. It's an inn or something, right?" I ask Wardes who's completely unfazed. Comes with the territory of being a soldier, I guess.

"Yes. We needed to wait there a night anyway, as out flight leaves tomorrow night," Wardes explains.

"Good. Louise, you okay to walk?" I ask her gently.

She nods. "I'm okay now. Just a little dizzy."

"Grab a shoulder and support yourself," I tell her as I offer her an arm to grab onto. "It shouldn't be that long of a walk."

Louise latches onto my arm, and we slowly hobble our way over to the inn. A piercing sensation in my head reminds me that I still haven't turned off Death Perception. When you get as comfortable using it as I have, it's an easy thing to forget. I just kind of start tuning everything out. The headache kind of acts as a reminder that I'm pushing it on how long I've been using it. It also makes me pause for a moment and grab my head on reflex.

"Are you okay?" Wardes asks.

"Yeah, just a small headache," I say, acting as if I didn't just notice something that shouldn't be.

"Try and hold on until we get to the inn," Wardes says. "Then you can take a rest."

"Awesome. Thanks," I say as I turn off Death Perception and try to piece together/ignore why Wardes has a red aura about him.

***Scene Break***

"Ah, nothing like resting in a nice big tub of a bath in nothing but your towel and your own happy thoughts," I muse as I kicked back and relaxed in the giant tub the place we were staying at had. It was like a giant hot springs! Only indoors! Let's ignore that there's probably a name for that.

Louise was off to the side sitting silently. I don't blame her.

"That your first time seeing someone die?" I ask her. She nods solemnly. "Sorry. I should have killed them slightly less brutally. Maybe just sort of neck snap or choked out as opposed to slicing in half. Probably would have been preferable."

"That's not funny," Louise tells me quietly. "How can you even joke about that?"

"I guess I'm used to it," I suggest. "That wasn't even close to the first time I saw someone die or even killed someone. I was eleven then."

"For which one?" Louise asks.

"Both. Same day, as a matter of fact," I state. "Not the same person though. I passed out almost immediately after I killed the guy. I was practically catatonic for a week afterwards."

"You were only eleven when you killed someone?" Louise asks. "What could drive someone so young to do something like that?"

I frown. "Okay, listen. Catatonic for a week should be an indicator that I wasn't too happy about the event. You really think I wanna talk about it? Hell, I don't want to talk about today, let alone five years ago."

Louise is silent for a minute. "Was it an accident? You accidentally did something with those weird eyes of yours?"

I give a humorless smile. "For better or worse it was completely on purpose. The death perception came directly afterwards. The universe's attempt at a cruel joke, I take it."

_What's that? You killed someone at an ungodly young age? Let's make you adept at that one thing you never want to do again!_ Well screw you too universe.

"How did you find out about them?" Louise asks. "You just woke up one day and knew how to kill anything?"

I pause. "Actually yeah. Obviously there's more to it then that but... terribly sorry, I got distracted. Kirche, Tabitha. What are you doing here?"

"What?" Louise seems surprised. Sure enough, entering the bath with us are Kirche and Tabitha.

"Well we saw you leaving the academy with a griffon, and we obviously couldn't just leave that be, right Tabitha?" Kirche says.

"Curious," Tabitha says, still having a book to read despite be in the bath in naught but her towel. Girl has her priorities.

"About what? Why we suddenly met up with a Viscount and left the academy on such short notice?" I ask. Tabitha nods.

"Delivery service," I respond. "We gotta go to point A and get the pizza and deliver it to point B."

"Pizza?" Tabitha and Kirche ask.

"... Shit, that doesn't exist here," I mutter. "Whatever. Just a food stuff. Point is, we were asked to get some stuff, right Louise?"

"Huh? Y-yeah." _Subtle. Very good Louise._

"Riiiiight," I mutter at her acting failure. "So I take it you'll be joining us?"

"But of course!" Kirche says.

"Yes," Tabitha says with a nod, not taking her eyes off the book.

"Cool. More help's always appreciated," I remark. "Right Louise?"

Louise looks like she wants to protest, but keeps her mouth shut for one reason or another.

"Then it looks like it's decided!" I announce. "We've got company! Wait. Where are you two staying anyway?"

Kirche smirks. "Don't worry, we've got that covered. They had a spare room or two available."

"Speaking of which, how are rooms working out Louise?" I ask her.

She thinks about it for a bit. "I believe the viscount said he would handle it."

"Ooooh, a viscount?" Kirche asks. "Who's he?"

"An escort that's accompanying us," I explain. I notice the gleam in Kirche's eyes and give my own smirk. "Don't even think about it. He's taken."

"Oh, calling dibs already?" Kirche answers with an equally devious smirk. "But what will little Louise think?"

"I was going to ask the same, considering she's engaged to the guy."

The smirk falls right off of Kirche's face as she looks at Louise, who's currently red. Very red. Hmmm. Maybe we've been in this hot bath for too long? I guess we should get out and head to our rooms.

Kirche and Tabitha elect to stay in the bath a bit longer, while me and Louise get out, get dressed and head out to confront Wardes about where we'll be staying the night. We manage to run into him after not too long and ask.

"Rooms were rather easy to procure," he informs us with another one of his smiles. "I ordered one for Jocelyn and one for Louise and I. Here are your room numbers," he says as he hands me and Louise a paper.

Louise blushes again. "B-but we're not even married yet!"

"And I'm pretty sure it'd be 'me and Louise,' not 'Louise and I,'" I throw out, earning me a frown from Louise. I reply with a shrug.

"Don't worry, my Louise," Wardes tells her as I try not to gag. Seriously, _my_ Louise? Geez, get a room. ... Wait. "Besides, there is something I needed to discuss with you."

"NO," I interject. "Now is hardly the time for baby making. Louise is too young to be a mommy." Louise's following glare immediately tears a new, previously unknown fear right from my very soul. "I regret nothing! And I'm also going to go get some fresh air away from the very angry pinkette. Laters!"

And then I bolted. I was out of the inn/wherever we're staying in record time. I breathe a sigh of relief, then tense up when I hear foot steps. I pull out my knife and point in the direction of the footsteps.

"... You?" I question.

"Nice to see you too. Would you kindly lower the knife?" Ms. Loungeville asks me. I oblige, but still remain on guard.

"And what are you doing here?" I ask. "Shouldn't you be off selling the staff of get-rich-quick?"

Loungeville hesitates, then shrugs as if saying, "what the hell."

"I was hired to take you and your little master out," she admits.

I tighten my grip on my knife. "Plan to follow up on that?"

"After what you did to the bandits they made me hire? I'm not suicidal," Loungeville says with a wry smile. "Besides, I do owe you a bit of gratitude for helping me with the Staff of Destruction."

"Any takers?" I wonder.

"One. Some old, noble or whatever. I didn't care much for his rank," Loungeville says with a shrug. "Baron? Viscount? One of the two. Maybe just a plain noble."

"Go back a bit. Who hired you to take us out?"

"Don't really know. He had a mask on and talked in an obviously faked voice," Loungeville tells me. "Didn't even tell me who I was targeting or why. Just told me to come here and attack whoever was present."

"And you just said yes," it was a statement, not a question.

"He offered a lot of money," Loungeville replies quickly.

"Right. Tell your sister I said hi. It's late, I'm going to bed now. Unless you wanted to try and stop me?"

Loungeville considers it, then shakes her head. "I'm not good to anyone, least of all her, if my head isn't connected to my body anymore. I bid you a fond farewell, Jocelyn."

"And you as well, Loungeville," I reply with a curtsy.

"Mathilda works just as well," she tells me.

"See ya round Mathilda. Hopefully we can meet again in conditions that are less, 'hired contract to kill me.'"

And with that, the ex-assassin and the technically-an-assassin-but-not-really bid each other a fond farewell and parted ways. I proceeded to head to the room that was mine. At least, according to the number on this paper in my pocket. Let's hope Wardes isn't playing some prank on me and I walk in on some old guy and his pillow going at it.

... Not a bad room. Bed seems comfortable enough. Oh hey! A coat hanger. Haven't seen those in forever. With those pieces of information in mind, I hang my jacket on the coat hanger, toss my skirt somewhere, reducing me to my white tank top and panties, put my glasses and knife on the nightstand next to the bed then slip under the covers and get ready for a good night's sleep.

"... So what do you think about it?" I ask nobody. "He had a red aura. That means he's an enemy, doesn't it? Yet, he was trusted enough by the princess to come help us, and he's engaged to Louise. I doubt both the princess and Louise's family can both be bad judges of character. What am I talking about, that'd make you suspect him more. You always predicted what would happen next. 'Oh, he's obviously going to be the one who did it. Oh, obviously she'll be the last one the alien gets, she had the lowest billing. Oh, he's the most trusted one so obviously he's evil.' Watching movies with you sucked, because you always managed to predict the plot points ahead of time. I swear, sometimes you were too smart for your own good. Besides, if you were here you'd be hitting on Louise by now, and that's why you'd hate Wardes. You always liked oddly colored hair, especially pink. Whatever. Night big bro."

***Scene Break***

I woke with a start. It took a surprising amount of willpower to not wake up screaming. Damn, haven't had that reaction to that dream in a long time. I look over to the side and spend a second grasping at the empty air. ... Maybe I should have asked for a pillow to hug or something. That works well. Either way, it's probably for the best, considering someone's knocking on the door. I get up, put on my glasses and grab my knife and head for the door. I open it up to find Wardes standing there.

"What's up?" I ask. "The ship doesn't leave until later tonight, doesn't it?"

Wardes briefly forgets to say anything. "Perhaps this can wait until you are decent."

Then it occurs to me.

"Oh, right. Sorry."

I reach over and grab my jacket off the coat hanger and put it on.

"There, much better," I say as I put one hand in my jacket's pocket, leaving my other hand holding my knife dangling at my side. "Something you wanted to talk about?"

"... Right. I simply wished to challenge you to a duel," Wardes informs me.

"... Whyyyyyyy?" I ask, letting the last syllable drag.

"Forgive the speculation on my part, but I am interested in those runes on your left hand," Wardes informs me.

I remove my left hand from my pocket and look at the runes on the back of it.

"Yep. It's all gibberish to me," I reply. "Fancy gibberish, but still fundamentally worthless."

"Yes. I had some suspicions after you had dueled the Gramont boy, but you're slaying of the bandits yesterday confirmed it. Those are the runes of Gandalfar," Wardes tells me.

I briefly reflect on how awesome being Gandalf would be, but that goes right out the window when my brain registers that there was an -ar at the end of it. There go my dreams of being the greatest wizard in history.

"Okay, and Gandalfar means," I gesture for him to continue.

"Gandalfar was the title of the familiar of the Founder Brimir," Wardes tells me. "He could wield any weapon with ease and was said to be able to effortlessly defeat any mage in combat. Those runes haven't been seen in centuries, so when speculation as to the nature of them reached me, I saw fit to investigate."

Well, wait. Let's try and look at this. The fight against Guiche was simply me kicking his ass. I didn't get any of that speed up I got against the bandits, even thought I was armed. If the previous Gandalfar was said to wield any weapon with ease, that probably means just holding a weapon makes me all game-breaky and sped up. Okay, that's well and good, but then why doesn't my knife do anything? Is it because it's a kitchen knife and wasn't really made to be a weapon? I'm cool with that. I like it better when it's a fair fight.

"Okay, so you think I'm the reincarnation of this legendary familiar, and want to test that theory by fighting a duel?" I ask to confirm, to which Wardes nods. "... Not interested. Useless fights bore me."

"And how, is it useless if I already told you the purpose of the fight?" Wardes asks.

"I don't really give a crap about whether or not I'm the reincarnation of familiar Jesus," I tell him. "Legends bore me. Wanna try again?"

Wardes thinks about it. While he does that, I switch to Death Perception and observe him. The red aura keeps bugging me.

"You know what? Keep your mouth shut there Wardes, I'll fight," I tell him.

He seems surprised. "Why the change of heart?"

I shrug. "You can learn a lot about a person from the way they fight. I'm interested in how you intend to fight."

Wardes smiles, seemingly satisfied. "Very well. Meet me out in the courtyard in five minutes. I need time to get our witness, otherwise it's not an official duel."

"See you then," I tell him before shutting the door in his face. I then immediately turn around, sit down and slump against the door. "... Shut up. You'd have fought him with even less reason then me. Like I said, you can find out a lot about a guy from how they fight. If the fight gets heated and he starts trying to kill me, that means he doesn't care if I live or die, which means he is an enemy, otherwise he'd take every precaution to not kill me so the mission can succeed. You'd fight him just to try and impress Louise. I'll go easy on him. I won't even use Death Perception unless he tries to kill me first."

My conversation with no one done, I get up and put my skirt on and do a few tricks with my knife to make sure I'm as awake as I can be for the fight. When I'm sure I'm ready, I get up and head out.

"... Shit. Where was the courtyard again?"

After some meandering about, I do manage to find the courtyard. I take my place at one end, and Wardes stands at the other end.

"So where's the witness?" I wonder aloud.

"She'll be coming soon," Wardes reassures me.

"Oh, good. I was worried that we'd all just wasted our time here," I reply dryly as I start doing some knife tricks. "Ah, shit," I say as I screw up and accidentally drop the knife.

"Do you know what these courtyards were originally used for?" Wardes asks out of nowhere.

"Nope. Crap," I say as I drop my knife again. "Sorry, go on."

"Originally these courtyards were used as a dueling ground between nobles over trifling matters," Wardes enlightens me. "Things such as monetary debts, or territorial disputes. Occasionally they were also fought over something a little more important."

"And that is?" I ask as I keep my gaze on the knife.

"The duels were sometimes fought to settle a dispute over a lover," Wardes says.

I drop the knife. That one wasn't because I was shocked at what Wardes was insinuating. Before I can respond to that, our witness shows up.

"Viscount? Jocelyn? What are you two doing?" Louise asks.

"Fighting a duel," I say as I pick up my knife. "His idea, I swear."

"W-wait, what!" Louise exclaims. "You're kidding right?"

"I'm always serious!" I say as I put my hand on my hips and thrust my chest out to show my bravado.

"No! Bad familiar! No dueling! Stop this right now!" Louise says as she starts panicking.

"Geez, it's not like I'm going to kill him," I say as I put my hands behind my head.

"Indeed. Don't worry my Louise, it will only be fought until first blood," Wardes tells me.

"Booooooooring," I say. "I fight to the end. Since it wouldn't do for either of us to die, how about first to give?"

Wardes mulls it over before nodding. "That seems acceptable enough. Any other rules you wish to add?"

"Just one. Start already!" I tell him.

Wardes smiles and draws something that resembles a sword, but doesn't seem sharp at all. "I allow my opponent the first move."

"Way ahead of you," I tell him, having already closed the gap between us while he was talking.

I keep the sharp end of the blade point away and swing with the side pointing towards him being the side that won't cut him too badly. I aim for his throat on instinct, but he blocks with his thing that I'm just going to call a sword until proven otherwise. I back off, then swing for him again, once again being blocked by his sword. He pushes me away then goes on the offensive, swinging at me. I parry the blows, and punch him in the stomach before backing off a bit. I notice his lips moving and my instinct puts up a convincing argument for dodge roll to the left. A plan I follow. Wardes swings his sword down and a blade of wind rushes right past where I was before the roll.

"Disqualification!" I yell as I point at him.

"I'm sorry, did you at any point specify that use of magic was forbidden?" Wardes asks with a dark smirk. "I have simply decided to use every advantage available to me. Acceptable, isn't it?"

"Fine, fine," I saw with a dismissive wave of my hand. I'll hold onto my trump card for now. He still hasn't actively tried to kill me, so no need to respond in kind. "Whatever. Round 2 begins. I'll let my opponent have the first move."

"Heh," Wardes chuckles humorlessly. "You're far too kind."

"I hate one-sided battles," I say with a shrug. "Where's the fun if you just walk over your opponent?"

"Very well," Wardes says. He starts chanting another spell, and I stand there, tapping my foot as I wait for him to do something.

"Do something!" Louise yells at me.

"I'm letting him have the first move like I said!" I yell right back at her. "Fair's fair!"

Geez, his spell should be done by now. Wardes seems so focused on chanting his spell that he doesn't seem to notice me walk over to him and smack him across the face with the hilt of my knife, sending him to the ground.

"Didn't you say I could have the first move?" Wardes asks as he gets up.

I shrug. "You're the one that decided to take five minutes chanting up a spell. Keep the game going!"

"This is a game to you?" Wardes asks.

"More or less," I affirm. "Why not? It is just a friendly spar, isn't it?"

Wardes smirks humorlessly. "Very well. I'll play along. Shall we continue?"

"Bring it!" I tell him.

Round 3 begins with Wardes rushing me. He swipes at me and I barely manage to dodge. He keeps up the offensive, while something occurs to me. He shouldn't be able to move this fast. I'm barely managing to block these strikes, forget parrying them. As I ponder that, I feel a slight breeze. Wait. The wind seems to be kind of in sync with his movements.

"You're using a wind spell to increase your movement speed?" I ask as I block an overhead.

"Impressive. I didn't think you'd notice," Wardes says. "Any counter for that planned?"

"I dunno, I'm winging this," I tell him as I block another strike. He's moving too quickly for me to actually risk taking an offensive. The second I leave an opening, he'll hit it. Now I kind of wish I had an actual weapon for the speed boost it gives. "You plan on doing anything with this added speed, or do you just like keeping me on the defensive?"

_!_

Thank God for my instincts. I say that because they just yelled at me to move to the side. I moved slightly to the left and managed to dodge the sword wand Wardes just tried to stab into my neck. We freeze in that position, Wardes sword to the side of my neck.

"Wardes," I begin.

"Yes?" He asks, not bothering to remove the sword from my neck. "Do you wish to surrender now that a sword is too you neck?"

"On the contrary, I wanted to thank you," I tell him. "That was clearly a kill shot. You have now tried to kill me, which gives me the opportunity to respond in kind. Game time's over," I tell him as I grab his sword wand with my free hand.

He releases a spell he had built up within it which causes a whirl of razor wind to surround the sword, cutting my hand to almost shreds. I respond by turning on Death Perception and cutting his sword in half. He takes a step back, and I swing at him, aiming for the neck. He steps back and barely manages to dodge it. All the speed he had while on the offensive is gone now. Whatever spell he used to speed up his movements probably dispersed when his wand was destroyed. Disappointing.

He drops the bottom half of his now apparently useless sword wand and tries to put as much space between us as possible.

"Still not done?" I ask him. "Any other little tricks you have?"

Wardes responds by pulling a small wand out of somewhere. Not surprising. You should always have a backup. He starts chanting again, and this time the effect is immediate, with a suite of dark clouds starting to build behind him. I let him do that as I walk over the discarded half of a sword. I pick it up, and the runes on my hand light up. Destroyed or not, a weapon is still a weapon. If it's sharp enough to cut, it's good enough for me. Half a blade in one hand and a knife in the other, I stare down Wardes as the storm clouds build behind him.

"Jocelyn, watch out!" Louise yells at me. "That's lightning cloud! It's a square level wind spell!"

"... How the hell does a wind spell make lightning?" I wonder aloud.

Wardes finishes chanting. He points his wand at me and fires, and a bolt of lightning shoots right towards me. I tighten my grip on the sword wand, and my perception speeds up. Time slows to a crawl as the lightning inches towards me. I note a small purple line on the bolt as it streaks through the air towards me. Right before the lightning is about to hit me, I swing my knife and cut along that line. The lightning disperses almost immediately. As the air clears of the leftover static, there's a brief pause as the fact that I just _killed magic_ sinks in. I ruin it by running forwards and closing the distance between me and Wardes in an instant. I smash him in the stomach with the hilt of his blade, the strike him across the chest with it. I get behind him and hit him again, this time with the hilt of my knife. I get down and sweep his legs out from under him, causing him to hit the floor. As he lies there on his back, I stand over him. I drop the sword wand and tighten my grip on my knife. I raise it and prepare to bring it down. My arms drops maybe an inch before Louise grabs it.

"No! Bad familiar!" Louise yells at me. "Don't kill him!"

I turn off Death Perception, look at Louise, and then look down at Wardes, who in turn looks back up at me. "We done here?"

He seems hesitant, but nods. "I concede defeat."

"Awesome," I say as I wiggle my arm free of Louise's grasp and put my knife away. "And sorry about breaking your sword."

I offer him a hand to help him up, which he takes.

"Do not worry about it," he tells me as he dusts himself off. "It is but one of the consequences of battle."

I smile. "Awesome. Go on Louise, I'll catch up with you."

"Are you sure? What about your hand?" Louise asks.

I look at my left hand and note the copious amount of cuts that are currently leaking blood.

"I've had worse. Don't worry, I heal fast. Just go back to your room."

Louise seems hesitant, but nods and goes off, probably to her room.

Once she's gone, I drop the smile and turn to Wardes. "You ever try to hurt me again, or ever try to hurt Louise, I'll finish the job."

"And what makes you think I intend to do either of those things?" Wardes asks.

"No matter how desperate a practice fight gets, you never try to kill the person you were hired to protect," I tell him. "I'll say it flat out. I don't trust you at all. Give me any reason to think you mean me or Louise harm, and I'll kill you. Simple as that."

Wardes gives another annoying smile. His smile is really starting to piss me off. "Then I have nothing to fear."

With that, he turns and walks off.

"Good_ GOD_ that guy pisses me off," I mutter to myself as I go off the find some paper towels or something to mop up the blood on my hand.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author Notes:**

... So, what to say with this one? First, if you haven't read the chapter do that first, please. It's okay, I'l wait.

...

No I won't. On the subject of Myoznitnirn, why is he here, and why is he a he? Wasn't Myoz supposed to show up far later in the story? And be a girl? I know as soon as I started this story, I didn't want another canon rehash. After all, what with those Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, an ability that's been balanced for things far above anything in Zero no Tsukaima, wouldn't everything just be a bit too easy? So, I decided I wanted to mix things up a bit. With that, I came up with the idea of making Myoznitnirn a major character, and changing the character. I was always a bit dissapointed that they introduced Myoznitnirn and could be summed up as "Oh hey! Another void familiar! That's actually really interesting! Control over magic items as opposed to weaponry? That could make a good contrast to Gandalfar! Wait, she does basically nothing? At all? And she does even less in the anime, only showing up in a few episodes for a total amount of screen time numbering in close to the single digits? ... DAMN IT!" I'm rambling, aren't I?

Getting off the topic of Myoznitnirn, let's talk about other things with this chapter. Remember the dreamscape from a chapter or two back? There was originally another one here at the end of the chapter. What happened to it, you may ask? Maybe we'll find out next chapter what happened with that. Either way, we're done here. See you next time.

**Chapter 4**

Our flight didn't leave for a bit, so I was outside the inn on a sort of patio like place. After the fight with Wardes I was able to find some bandages which were currently wrapped all around my left hand. As such, I felt like I was wearing almost like a set of fingerless gloves, just made of bandages. Sucks that I can't see the gandalfar runes what with the bandages, but it's no big loss. It's like those people that get tattoos on their chest, then just wear a shirt over it. You're really not missing much. That in mind, I was leaning against the railing and looking up at the night skyline.

"Hm. None of the stars are the same," I mutter dejectedly. "Damn shame. I'm gonna miss that star."

"What star are you talking about?" Louise asks me as she joins me out on the... I guess balcony is a good word for it?

"Well obviously I'm from a different world, and unfortunately that means I usually see a different night sky," I explain. "There was this one star I really liked. Can't find it anymore. That depresses me."

Louise doesn't respond.

"So, you hate me know?" I ask.

Louise seems surprised. "Wh-what!"

I shrug. "I killed eight guys in front of you, admitted to being an unrepentant murderer, and an ex-assassin and I nearly killed your groom-to-be. Not like I haven't given you plenty of reasons for it."

Louise pauses for a second.

"You don't regret killing anyone?" Louise asks.

I shake my head. "Nope. The world is better without them. The first guy I killed too, since I know you were going to ask. Again, I was emotionally catatonic for a week afterwards, but I never regretted it. He deserved it. They all deserved it, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. I try to keep some sense of morals. What's the point of taking out people who make the world worse if you just become one of them after the end of it?"

"Then what about Wardes?" Louise asks. "Did he deserve it?"

I frown. "... I don't trust him. At all."

"Oh for Founder's sake, will you forget about the thing with the horse!" Louise yells at me.

"N-no! That was completely different!" I insist. "That horse had it out for me! You saw that look in his eyes! Damn foal of a bitch was a freaking psychopath!"

Louise chuckles at my response.

"Wait, we're off topic," I say, my frown returning. "I'm serious this time. I don't trust Wardes. Remember I told you I'm a good judge of character?"

"That's absurd," Louise tells me. "The princess trusted Wardes enough to ask him to help us with this! And my parents-"

"Thought he was nice enough to get you two hitched, yeah I'm aware," I interrupt. "I don't expect you to trust me. I just want you to at least be careful."

There's a brief silence as Louise processes what I'm telling her. I start chuckling, which surprised Louise.

"What's so funny?" Louise asks.

"Just thinking how this is probably nothing like you thought," I tell her. "You were probably hoping for some big, awesome animal that'd do whatever you say, and instead you get me who's just a normal girl who's adept at killing things and telling you not to trust your future husband."

"It... It is rather unexpected," Louise admits.

"Well, you could always get another one, right?"

"What are you talking about!" Louise yells at me. "A mage can't have more then one familiar, and can't get another one until the current one is dead."

"... Mages here are laaaaaaame," I say. "Mages in stories back home could have like a billion familiars."

"H-hey! Don't insult nobility!" Louise tells me.

I chuckle and brush the yelling off. I do get an idea though. I unwrap the bandages on my left hand, look at my runes and then turn on death perception. I take out my knife and point it at the runes. Before I can even begin to do anything Louise grabs my arm.

"What are you doing!" Louise yells at me.

"Huh? I was just gonna kill the familiar contract," I tell her. "That way you can summon up something more in line with your expectations."

"No! Bad familiar!" Louise tells me. "You are staying my familiar! This is not a topic open for discussion!"

"... Um..."

Louise blushes a little. "Don't get any funny ideas! It'd be a huge disgrace if my familiar just left me of her own free will, and a mage doesn't toss their familiar aside just because they want a new one!"

Uh huh. Sure. That's it exactly. "That aside, 'bad familiar?' So I'm an animal now?"

Louise pauses. "It works," she says to defend herself.

"Won't deny that," I say. "Whatever. Come on, we've got a flight to catch, and I don't want to be late for the next thing to go wrong."

"We're practically in Albion already!" Louise yells at me. "What could possibly go wrong?"

"Word of advice, that's an invitation for things to go wrong."

***Scene Break***

"Keep. Your mouth. Shut," Louise tells me as we chugged along.

"I didn't say anything!" I protest. "I mean, I was about to, but still, I said nothing about how things went horribly wrong almost immediately, and I said nothing about how we were all kidnapped by pirates threatening to blow us out of the sky!"

"What did I say?" Louise asks. "Can't you just cut your way out of those things anyway?" Louise adds the last part as a whisper.

"One, they took my knife YOU BASTARDS!" I direct at them, earning me a glare which I dismiss with a shrug. "I like that knife. Also, my hands are tied up behind me so I can't exactly see them making it really hard to cut them. Even if I could see them, like I said they took my knife. In testing what it takes to cut those lines I tried to see if I could just do it with my hand. Okay, yeah I _think_ I cut the line, but I broke four of my fingers in the process. Those lines are tough sons of bitches."

"So we're in really deep trouble then," Louise confirms.

"More or less. Wardes! Any ideas?"

"'Don't cause trouble and see if we can convince the captain to let us go' seems to boring, doesn't it?" He asks me.

"Incredibly so. Okay, Tabby? Kirche? Any suggestions?" I ask.

"Tabby?" Tabby questions.

"I have a cat back home. Found her on the streets and took her in. She's a tabby, so I called her Tabby. You honestly remind me of her," I explain.

"No talking!" One of the guards guiding us tells me.

"I'll talk if I wanna talk!" I yell at him. "And you know what?"

"What?" Another guard asks.

"I feel like talking!" I tell him. "And I think I'll exercise that right!"

"Do it in front of the captain," he says as he ushers us into a room. Fancy room too. Standing near some kind of giant window of sorts was what I assume was the captain.

"I think I will then. Yo! Cap! How are things?" I ask him.

The captain turns and looks at us. If he's surprised at how casually I'm addressing him, he doesn't show it. The captain was some blonde guy in fancy dress with a bandana diagonally wrapped across half his head. It looked like some weird cross between an eyepatch and a headband. Not bad.

"So these are the new prisoners?" He asks. "They seem like a lively bunch."

"No, it's mostly Jocelyn," Louise explains. "Tabitha for example is pretty subdued."

The captain takes that moment to look at Tabitha, who looks back at him. There's silence for a minute.

"Yes, she is a quiet one isn't she," the captain says. "So what were all of you doing in this airspace? You know it's rather dangerous, what with the rebels attacking the old royalty."

"Honestly I'd be more worried about the pirates in the air space," I say. "I hear they're a bunch of baby-eating monster who wouldn't hesitate to kill a poor defenseless girl just because she, her pink haired master and friends were going on vacation to the fabulous floating island of Albion," I give in perfect deadpan.

The captain laughs a little. "So I've heard. So, a vacation was it?"

"Of course not, we were here on very important business with the royal family!" Louise says.

I'd facepalm if I could.

"Important business? What kind?" The captain asks.

Louise catches the glare I give her and clams up.

"Oh, so now you decide on silence?" The captain asks. "Interesting stopping point. And you're sure you don't want to tell us what that business is? We'd be more then happy to let you go back home and pass that information on ourselves."

"Yes, we'd love to give you the information so you can kill us and sell it to the highest bidder," I remark dryly. "I've read enough books to know how pirates work."

"Oh, but we are very honorable pirates!" The captain assures us. I give him a deadpan look to let that set in. "Trust is not an easy thing to earn from you I see."

"Hey, I'm willing to let you keep Three Musketeers over here in exchange for letting us go back to Tristain, that should tell you how much I trust people," I explain. "Wait, I already used Three Musketeers."

"Is coming up with another name for me really that important?" Wardes asks.

"Yes Renaissance Man, yes it is," I tell him.

"Guards, please escort Tabitha..." He gestures for Kirche's name, which he gets. "Kirche and Three Musketeers out of the room. I wish to speak with these two alone."

"I'm Viscount Wardes."

"Exactly what I said Renaissance Man," the captain says with a smirk. Heh. I like this guy.

Either way, me and Louise were now alone with the Captain. Still got our hands tied behind our backs.

"Before you say anything, give me a second," I say as I walk over to the captains desk, slip out of my bonds and grab a pencil which I start spinning and doing little tricks with to keep my mind occupied. "There. Much better."

"Why didn't you do that earlier!" Louise demands.

"I didn't have anything to do it with," I tell her. "Like I said, they took my knife. I'd prefer to do it with that, but the pencil'l do. I like having something in my hand to keep my mind busy," I explain to the captain.

"No! Why didn't you get out of the rope they tied around our wrists!"

"Oh that," I shrug. "Didn't really have a reason. We're on their ship in the sky. We set off any type of alarm and we're SOL."

"I thought the guards were better at tying up people then that," the captain observes. "How'd you get out of them so easily?"

"Practice, and lot's of it," I explain while I spin the pencil some more then toss it in the air before catching it and resuming the spinning and tricks. "So what's up? What'd you wanna discuss?"

"I simply wished to talk about that business you said you had with the royal family. You will not divulge that information? Even if it meant your safe return to Tristain?"

"This mission is far too important for us to fail!" Louise says. "If you desire to stand in our way, then my familiar will simply have to remove you."

"And where is your familiar?" the captain asks.

"Present!" I say as I raise my free hand.

The captain seems surprised, but then he starts laughing. "How weird. Tristainian nobles truly are odd, aren't they?"

"No, it's mostly Louise."

"Hey!"

"So, what proof do you have that you do indeed have business with the royal family?" the captain asks. "How can you prove you are who you say you are?"

"... Damn it, I didn't think about that," I mutter. "Louise, how can we prove Henrietta sent us?"

"She gave us the letter to give the prince, remember?" Louise hisses at me.

"... Nope, drawing a blank. Did that happen?" I wonder aloud. "Well if it did we're not bringing the letter out, because then he'll just swipe it!" I say as I point at the captain.

"I have no intention of doing such a thing," he says with a look on his face like he's enjoying himself.

"Right, right Wales. Gimme a moment, and I'll-"

"Wait!" Louise exclaims. "What'd you just call him?"

"Huh? Wales? Well that's the name of that guy Henrietta wanted us to see, isn't it?" I ask.

"Exactly! So why are you calling him that?" She asks as she points at Wales.

"... Well it was kind of obvious, wasn't it?" I ask. "I mean, the constant pestering about our business with the royal family, then the constant pestering about having proof about us being who we say we are. It just kind of seemed obvious. Am I right or wrong?"

Wales seems somewhat surprised at me deduction, then smiles and takes the bandana eyepatch off. "Indeed, I am the crown prince Wales. Nice to meet the two of you. Ah! Before you ask me for proof as I know you were going to-"

"Damn, preempted me."

"Here," he says as he shows us a brown ring on his finger. "The Earth Ruby, a symbol of the royal family. Henrietta possesses the Water Ruby. I'm surprised she didn't give it to you to prove what you say is true."

"R-right, princess always did wear that ring," Louise says to herself. "Maybe I should have asked."

"Why is it a ruby if it's brown?" I wonder aloud.

Wales ponders. "That's a very good question. I don't know, I'd have to look into it."

"Geez, you're a prince and you don't even know any good information brokers who could already have that info to you? How disappointing," I say with a shake of my head.

Wales smiles. "We can't all have connections of that nature."

"Sad but true," I say with a shrug. "Either way, Louise, do you have the letter for him?"

"Yes, right here," Louise says as she reaches into her shirt pocket that I never even knew she had and pulls out an envelope and hands it to Wales. Wales pulls the letter out of the envelope and reads through it.

"Henrietta is getting married?" Wales asks what I can only assume is the letter itself. "My lovely Henrietta is getting married?"

I swear, the next time someone refers to some with a "my" in front of their name, I am going to vomit. It's disgusting. It's weird. I'm fine whenever couples do any other lovey-dovey stuff, but the second it's "_my_ Louise," or "_my_ Henrietta," I just feel like kicking something.

"Prince Wales, please forgive my rudeness," Louise begins. "Did you and the Princess have um... that kind of relationship?"

Wales doesn't say anything, but he does smile. "Indeed. Me and my cousin Henrietta do indeed love each other."

"And more power to you for it," I say. "As long as it doesn't start any wars, go right ahead with that. ... It hasn't started a war, has it?"

Wales chuckles humorlessly. "Thankfully no, though we can't exactly say the current situation is much better. People will rebel about anything these days. I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure why they're rebelling."

"Maybe they just want a good war?" I suggest.

"If that's what they wanted, they hardly got it," Wales says. "We'll probably not last the week. We'll be lucky to last another few days. We were thinking of throwing one last party at the castle tomorrow. A sort of farewell to life, as it were. Care to join us?"

"Geez, it's that decided? No possibility of a comeback?" I ask.

Wales shakes his head.

"What the hell, I'm always down for free food. Louise?"

Louise doesn't say anything, which I take to mean as a yes.

"Cool! Parties for everyone! Oh, wait, can I ask a favor? One of your big guys took my knife, do you think I can get it back please?"

"Do you plan on utilizing that knife on any of my guards?" Wales asks.

"No, of course not! Well, maybe that one with the stupid mustache."

"I'll see what I can do," Wales says with a small smile.

"Thanks Prince."

***Scene Break***

"This party's depressing," I muse as I stand in a corner drinking fruit punch.

It wasn't even the party itself, that was freaking awesome! Everyone was energetic and dancing, the food was great, the atmosphere was charged beautifully. Then you remember that they're all here to enjoy their last few days on this planet. Suddenly the happy atmosphere becomes rather choking.

"Enjoying the party?" Wardes asks as he approaches me.

"Why are you here?" I ask him rather angrily.

"I had a few things I wanted to discuss with you."

"You want to talk to me for a possibly extended period of time," he nods. "So you _do_ want the atmosphere to be tainted by a murder." You're lucky I left my knife in my room.

"You really don't trust me, do you?" Wardes asks.

"When I've given more trust to rocks," I shrug and let the thought go unfinished.

"How amusing," Wardes notes. "I simply wished to let you know that Louise has received the letter from Wales. Our business is done, and we can leave tomorrow. The day the rebels are said to possibly invade."

"Lucky us, and forgive my lack of enthusiasm," I say rather monotone.

"It's expected. Your ship back to Tristain will depart tomorrow at noon. Tabitha and Kirche will ride the ship with you with Tabitha's familiar following as well. Louise and I will follow afterwards on my griffon when our business is done."

"What business?"

"Me and Louise are to be married tomorrow, with Wales preceding over it. I asked him as a last favor to us before we leave."

"Congrats," I tell him. "Whoop-de-doo. Wait, what? He can do that?"

"As crown prince, Wales has the authority necessary to wed two people," Wardes confirms.

That's annoying. Very much so. No point getting upset over it though, just the person whom it's your job to protect is getting hitched to someone you don't trust at all by a prince who's wanted dead by rebels who are supposed to be invading that day. Wait, I know! Let's also make it that the mayans predicted that the world would end that day, and have the wedding in an active volcano while meteors rain from the sky! And everyone can be dying of something horrible and painful, like a cold, or a really, really bad cough. Anything to make it even worse!

"You have no objections?" Wardes asks.

"Plenty. Why should I voice them though? It won't change it, now will it?" I ask.

"I expected more of a reaction or something else out of you," Wardes says, more to himself then me.

"I wanna show you something Wardes," I mime pulling out a piece of paper and showing it to Wardes. "Here. A list of all the people who care about what you were expecting."

"Quite a lengthy list," he remarks dryly.

"Oh, number three and five recently asked to have their names stricken so that shortens the list a bit. Whatever. I'm going to go get something to drink. See ya Wardes."

I don't wait for him to say a similar parting and just go and walk to the refreshments bar. As I'm pouring another fruit punch, a random thought hits me. _How the hell are we going to get Slyphid on the ship? She'll never fit._ And just like that, all the anger and tension that had been building up during the talk with Wardes disappears. Sometimes I think I have a form of ADD, and I'm glad. Those random thoughts have saved my life by keeping me calm on more then one occasion. Like this one time when I... Damn, this fruit punch is good.

***Scene Break***

Since the castle had some spare rooms, we all got one while we waited for tomorrow. Tabitha and Kirche got one, Wardes got one, and Louise and I got one. We were currently knocked out for the night, sleeping with our backs to each other. Well, kind of sleeping.

"Jocelyn, you awake?"

"Yeah. What's up Louise?"

"I... I kind of wanted to ask you something. I just wanted your opinion on it."

"I don't care what color ribbons you wear in your hair," I tell her. "Though if you do anything, do red ribbons with twin tails."

"That's not what I meant!" Louise tells me. "It's just... You're familiar with death, right?"

"More then I'd care to admit, why?"

"What do you think about these people?" Louise asks. "They're probably going to die tomorrow, and they spent the entire day celebrating that fact. Is that normal?"

"If we're being honest, I don't know. I guess it varies from person to person. Everyone has their own way of coping with it. Some people get all quiet and emotionally repressed, some get depressed, others go all mid-life crisis and spend everything they have. Not like they need it anymore. I think this is just their way of trying to get past it. No way to prevent it, might as well enjoy our last few hours."

"But what about Wales? He has the princess. He's just letting that go? He's going to die and leave her alone? He was a pirate when we met him, he can just get a ship and flee to Tristain! The princess can give him shelter!" Louise argues.

"A lot of the people here probably have loved ones. They know what they're doing, and they're willing to lay it all down to at least try and save their home. The way I see it, no matter what we do we'll never be able to talk them out of it. These people will die tomorrow, no matter what we do."

There's a pause as I let Louise think about what I told her.

"That's wrong," Louise says. "We... We could do something! I don't know what, be we probably could! And we're just letting them die? Just like that? On the chance that we can't do anything about it?"

I sigh. "We're not letting them die on the chance we can't do anything. They're choosing to die because they have no other choice and we can't do anything about it."

"You talk about it so casually," Louise notes.

"Comes with the territory," I say with what could almost qualify as a shrug if I wasn't lying down half asleep.

"Right. Assassin," Louise remembers.

"Ex-assassin, if we're being completely accurate," I correct. "I haven't killed or been hired to kill a single person since I've come here."

"You kill whoever you're hired to?" Louise asks.

"No," I reply quickly.

"... Care to elaborate on that one?"

"I don't kill someone just because someone waves a case of money in my face. I kill people because I feel they deserve to be killed, and that the world would be better without them. I kill without discrimination or mercy and I'm not better then those I've chosen to kill," I tell the pinkette, ignoring the sense of deja vu I'm getting from this conversation.

"... So you're one of the good guys then," Louise says firmly.

"I'm sorry, what?" I ask as I turn over to face her.

She turns around to talk to me face-to-face. "You only kill when they deserve it. You're taking evil out of the world, aren't you?"

I suppress the urge to laugh. "Listen. Taking evil out of the world doesn't create more good in it. I'm removing the people committing unforgivable acts by performing a few of my own. As such, I've long past accepted that if there is a hell, I'm going to one for everything I've done. I simply choose not to let it bother me because I'm not heading there any time soon."

Louise gives a hesitant and weak smile. It was the smile you give when you simply don't know how else to react.

"Well. Um..." I can see the gears working in Louise's head in an attempt to change gears and reduce the tension. Since those gears aren't working hard enough, I decided to change the topic myself.

"So, you're getting married tomorrow! Congratulations!"

Louise pouts. "What's with that?"

"?"

"Don't '?' me!" Louise tells me. "I thought you hated Wardes."

"I don't hate him... Wait, no. I do. Mostly I just don't trust him," I sort-of correct. "Still, aren't you supposed to congratulate people when they get hitched? Sentimental stuff about how it's the happiest day of their life and things like that?"

Louise is silent as she ponders that.

"Bah, whatever. Like I said, I don't trust Wardes. But on the flip side, I'm not exactly asking you to trust me. Use your best judgement. It's not my call to make, but I'll support what you chose to do. That's my job, isn't it?"

"Right. Thank you, Jocelyn."

"No problem. Night newlywed."

Louise blushes a shade of red so fierce that it glows in the dark.

"Don't say things that can be easily misunderstood," she tells me.

"Right, right. Good night."

***Scene Break***

... I. Hate. Weddings. Forget that this one is a wedding between the person I'm supposed to be keeping safe and someone I have absolutely no trust in, weddings in general just bore me! Being an audience of one probably isn't helping, but nothing ever happens! The priest, or in this case crown prince about to be dead, says things no one pays attention to, then the bride and groom say a total of four words between the two of them when prompted and make out. Big whoop. You can do that anywhere!

As you can probably guess, I was sitting front row for the wedding of Louise to Wardes with Prince Wales overlooking it. Why was I here viewing it when I should have been on my way home on a big fancy ship? The ship got delayed. Something about a delayed shipment of fuel. As such, I had a few hours to kill, and no better way to kill them then this. I just wanted this to be over already.

Eventually it got to everyone's favorite part: the "do you take la-di-da to be your lawfully wedded bedmate." Forgive the paraphrasing. Wardes obviously said yes. Having got the groom's confirmation, Wardes turns to Louise for her confirmation.

...

Damn, what's with the pause? Keep the thing flowing! Wait. Pause means that Louise hasn't said anything. That means hesitation, which means... what, exactly? Instead of answering that, Louise keeps staring at the floor. Look, I know it's a nice floor and all but... actually no, there isn't a but. It's just a really nice floor. I wonder if I can get this pattern for my bathroom back home.

"Louise, what is your answer?" Wales asks again.

"S-sorry, I had something on my mind," she meekly apologizes.

"No worries," Wales says with a smile."I'll ask again. Do you take Wardes to be your groom?"

Louise hesitates again, then turns and looks at me. Wait, now it's my decision? It's your wedding, it's your choice, not mine! Screw it, I'm saying no. I shake my head from side to side, giving the universal signal for "no." That, or maybe it was "Oh god, this is stupid." I haven't really kept up on the universal signal book.

Louise's expression changes to determined, and she looks at Wales before shaking her head. "I'm sorry. I can't go through with this."

"YES! Champagne's on me everybody!" I cheer. "Oh, uh... I mean, darn. Why ever not, Louise?"

"It doesn't feel right," Louise says. "I don't want to do something I could regret later in life. Wardes, I'm sorry but I think if I went through with this that I would regret it."

"Welp! That settles it! We're done here, let's go," I say as I stand up.

"Awwww, leaving so soon? How boring. I was hoping for something a bit more fun."

... Wait, I don't know that voice. We all turn to the voice and see a man standing in the aisle between the two sets of pews. The guy looked kind of old. His hair was cut short and colored grey, the kind of grey you get from being really old and not like Wardes gray. The difference in spelling is intentional. The new guy's hair is definitely a grEy whereas Wardes is definitely a grAy. Big difference. Either way, the guy had the old guy mustache/beard combo. Not bad. He was even wearing a nice suit. Sort of old timey, but still stylish. The newcomer walks up and takes a seat in the front row on the opposite side of the room where I am.

"So is that it? You all just pack up and leave now? Boo hoo, wedding's called off, let's just go our mission accomplish?"

"... Yeah?" I retort, since everyone else is far too confused to even manage that.

"Well your mission may be complete," the guy says as he motions to me, Louise and the Prince. "But what about Three Musketeers over here?"

"You too?!" Wardes exclaims.

"Shut up, I'm talking," the newcomer says with a half smile. "But what about you, since we're on the topic? You have the letter, but what of your other two goals?"

There's a silence as the question hangs in the air.

"Louise."

"Yes Jocelyn?" Louise asks nervously.

"You didn't give Wardes the letter, did you?" I ask her.

Louise briefly hesitates. "M-maybe." I glare at her. "Okay, yes. He said he would take care of it!"

"Damn it," I say. "This is why I said we should destroy the damn thing."

"Oh, don't worry," the new guy says. "Wardes still has it in his pocket."

"How do you know that?!" Wardes exclaims again.

"I have no idea what's going on," Wales voices his opinion.

Wardes sighs anyway, then reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a familiar looking envelope.

"Yes, I have the envelope," Wardes says. "After the wedding, I was going to deliver it to my superiors in Reconquiesta."

"Reconquesta?! The rebels?" Wales asks.

"Damn, I should have made a bet that you were evil. Now I get nothing out of being right," I sigh as I cross my arms in front of my chest.

"I'll admit, I didn't expect you to see-"

"Give me that!"

There's a tearing sound as Louise steals the envelope and tears it into multiple pieces before tossing them all on the ground, then point her wand at it.

"Fireball!"

*BOOM*

... You know what, the explosion turned the paper to ashes, so I think we can call this one a half success.

"I have had it with all this," Louise huffs as she puts her wand away.

"... Okay, so that's one goal off the list, and your other two?" The new guy asks Wardes.

"Fine. My second goal was to secure Louise-"

"Not happening," I say as I pull out my knife and point it at Wardes. "So much as move from that spot, and I'll kill you."

Wardes smiles. "As expected."

"W-why me?" Louise asks.

"Oh, various reasons," The new guy says. "Stuff about legendary powers locked inside you and boring things like that. Oh, don't bother asking how I know Wardes, you won't get an answer, nor will you live past the hour."

"We'll see about that old man," Wardes growls at the new guy.

"Hey look! Pot calling kettle black! I like this show," I say. "Whatevs. Third goal?"

"Yes. My third goal..."

Wardes draws his recently repaired sword wand and makes a quick movement with the intent to stab Wales. Shocker, sent to kill the prince and head of the government they're trying to topple. Fortunately for him, I'm too far away to be able to just run up and stop him. Unfortunately for him, I can throw knives pretty well, as the knife currently jutting out of his shoulder demonstrates. Wardes reals back, the sword in his hand clattering to the ground as he grabs his shoulder.

_Chance!_

I rush forward and close the distance between us. I take my knife from his shoulder, get behind him and put my knife to his throat.

"Endgame," I tell him.

I don't give him the chance to say anything before I dig my knife into his throat. A few seconds later, his head rolls off his shoulders and hits the floor, followed shortly afterwards by his body. I use the not bloodied part of his clothing to wipe the blood off my knife.

"And so ends the life of one traitor, Viscount Wardes," the newcomer says as he stand up and claps slowly.

"Oh, right. And who are you again?" I ask as I point my knife at him.

The old guy smiles. "And what do you gain from learning my name? And what do you earn from me telling you my title of Myoznitnirn?"

"That's a mouthful. Got anything shorter then that?" I ask.

"Nothing of the sort is necessary, now is it?" He smiles again. "Alas, my business here is more or less complete. I shall see you again in the future. Ah! My mistake, one last thing."

*BANG*

Very shortly after the bang, Wales hits the floor, the hole in his head giving a pretty solid indicator to his current status.

"There," Myoznitnirn says, the pistol in his hand smoking from the shot.

I put myself between him and Louise, my knife still pointing at him.

"Anyone else you want to shoot?" I ask him sternly.

"No," he says with a smile. "With him dead, the monarchy falls, right?"

"What, so that Reconquiesta thing can take over?" Louise asks.

Myoznitnirn laughs. "Please. I already killed that so called 'Emperor' Cromwell. Reconquiesta will completely fall apart by tomorrow."

Now me and Louise were both confused. I still kept my knife pointed at him.

"So... you're not working for the royal family, obviously, and you're not for the rebellion, then what are you doing here?" I ask him.

"All is for my king," he says with a sardonic smirk and a small bow. "Oh, and don't worry, I have no desire to fight you. However, should you wish to..."

He reaches into what I assume is a back pocket, and withdraws a sheathed combat knife. My body tenses up, ready to spring at him the second he shows any intent to use that knife. Instead, he tosses it to me. I catch the knife with my free hand. I grip it by its handle with my free left hand, and my runes light up.

"You might with to use that instead," Myoznitnirn finishes his sentence with another sardonic smile.

Louise seems confused as to why he would willingly arm me with something like this. I get it though. He's sending a message here. "I know what those runes on your hand mean, I know what they do, and I know it won't help you." That's what this small gesture is communicating to me. My instincts are throwing up every red alert they can. _This man is dangerous._

"So you're saying we can both just walk away from this without a fight?" I ask as I glare at him.

"Of course. I have no conflict with you. Not yet anyway."

Another smirk.

"Okay, then just go," Louise tells him. "Just leave."

"It appears I'm not wanted here," _No shit, Sherlock._ "Oh, before I go there is one thing I meant to ask. How is your brother doing, Joc?"

_!_

I throw my knife to the floor, unsheathe the combat knife, the sheathe joining the knife on the floor, and rush Myoznitnirn. I aim to stab in his goddamn eye, but he catches me by my wrist. I try to push the combat knife further a bit, but he keeps me firm.

"So you _want_ to die you son of a bitch," I growl at him. "Louise, don't move. I'm killing this guy myself."

"Ooh! Such bloodlust!" Myoznitnirn notes.

I tighten my grip on the combat knife and my perception speeds up. I break free of his grasp and swipe at his neck. He sticks his hands in his pockets and leans back to dodge it. I swipe at him again, but he sidesteps it. I move to stab him, and he turns to dodge grabs my wrist and then throws me down to the ground. My head hits the marble floor, and my vision goes fuzzy for a minute. I stand right back up and rush him again. He dodges another one of my swipes, then knees me in the gut hard enough to force my breath to leave my lungs. I swipe at his neck again, but he once again grabs my wrist and we hit another deadlock. Me trying to stab him in the neck, and him exerting no effort in keeping the combat knife at bay.

"Funny. I expected more from you. How dissapointing," he tells me. "I feel like your brother would have been far more entertaining."

"I'LL SHOW YOU ENTERTAINING YOU FUCKER!" I yell as I tear my glass off and throw them at the floor as I turn on Death Perception.

"Ooh. Such pretty eyes," he tells me.

I wrench my wrist free and aim at the line straight across his goddamn smug face. He ducks slightly to dodge it, but I keep up the assault. Slice, stab, left, right. He manages to dodge every single one.

"Ah, this game is starting to get old, is it not?" Myoznitnirn asks. I don't respond and focus on stabbing his eyes out. "Ah, no witty comment? Fine, I'll end this."

He dodge one of my stabs, and grabs my arm. Myoznitnirn starts bending my left arm backward. I try to stab him with the arm he's not grabbing, but he just swats the knife away and out of my grip, before punching me in the face, disorienting me slightly.

*CRACK*

I bite down on my tongue hard enough to make it bleed to keep from screaming out as Myoznitnirn snaps my arm, bending it back at an angle it shouldn't be at. He brings our foreheads together in a headbutt and I fall to the floor. I try to get up, but putting pressure on a broken arm isn't a good idea. Pain shoots through me, and I fall to the floor. I spit out the blood welling up in my mouth as I try to get up with my one still working arm. I get a little bit up, only to feel pain as Myoznitnirn's foot connects with my face, sending me right back to the floor. I spot my knife nearby and reach for it, only for Myoznitnirn to stomp down on my wrist.

"Geez. Is that it?" Myoznitnirn asks, making sure to stomp on my wrist for good measure. "I was hoping for something much more. All good things end, do they not?"

Before I can respond to that there's an explosion, and smoke fills the room, and I feel the pressure on my wrist disappear. I turn my head and see Louise, her wand drawn.

"Damn it, I told you not to do anything Louise!" I yell at her as I try to get back up.

"You expect me to stand there while you get killed!" Louise yells as she runs over to me to try and help me up.

"BACK OFF! I'm fine!" I yell as I try to get back up. "Where's the bastard?"

"Right here," Myorznitnirn tells us as the smoke clears, revealing him looking rather unharmed, though his clothes seem a bit singed. "How nice of you to interfere."

Louise stands up and faces him down before pointing her wand at him. "Stay away from my familiar."

Myoznitnirn chuckles. "Or what? You'll stop me with your rather pathetic magic?" He asks as he starts walking towards us.

Louise stands firm, her wand pointed at him. She opens her mouth to cast another spell.

Myoznitnirn closes the distance far too fast, and knocks Louise's wand away sending it skittering across the room. Louise doesn't let it faze her, and instead scoops the combat knife and stabs Myoznitnirn in the shoulder.

He briefly cries out in pain, before smacking Louise across the face, sending her right down next to me, and then pulls the knife out of his shoulder.

"You two are little pests, aren't you?" He asks, actually sounding a little angry. "You have no idea how much I would like to kill you two."

"You have no idea how much I'd like to stick that knife down your fucking throat," I spit at him.

"Oddly enough, I've heard that before," he says humorlessly. "Not quite how I may have expected it to work out, but I'll gladly end it here."

"Go ahead," I growl at him.

"As you wish," he says with a smile.

*CRASH*

"ROOOOOAR!"

"Ooh! And what happened here?" I here a familiar voice say from atop a descending dragon. "Tabitha! Go right ahead!"

Kirche motions Tabitha to do something, and the bluenette waves her staff, and a storm of icicles form behind her and fire right at Myoznitnirn. Myoznitnirn drops my knife and proceeds to focus on dodging all the ice he can.

"Tch. How annoying," Myoznitnirn notes. "Fine. Not as much a success as I would have liked, but this will do. Take care."

"No. NO! GET BACK HERE YOU ASSHOLE!" I yell at him as I grab my discarded knife and try to chase after him. Considering I'm still on the floor, It's more like crawling, but I don't care, this bastard needs to die, and I want to be the one to kill him.

Myoznitnirn ignores my yelling at him and manages to disregard the incoming ice and flee out the front door. Slyphid lands, and Kirche and Tabitha disembark her and approach us.

"Louise! Jocelyn! Are you two okay?" Kirche asks.

"Yeah, I'm just fucking peachy, how the HELL do you think I am?!" I yell at her. I note her expression, and sigh as I grab onto a nearby pew and drag myself up. "Sorry. Not in the best of moods at the moment. Arm's broken, damn near bit my tongue off, my head hurts, I hurt all over. I just want to go home."

I walk over to Louise and crouch down. "Louise, you okay?"

"My head hurts," she tells me as I help her up. She's bleeding a little bit, but compared to me at the moment it really isn't much. "Forget about me though, I'm fine. Are you okay?"

"Okay enough. I'm going home," I say as I walk over to Slyphid and climb up on her. Not as easy as you'd think, climbing up on a dragon with only one not-broken arm. "Let's go home."

"Are you sure? What about your arm?" Louise asks, worry creeping into her voice.

"It's fine, I've had worse happen," I say as I cradle my broken arm as best as possible. "Ah, wait."

I hop off Slyphid and pick up my knife and glasses. I spare a glance at the combat knife, contemplating whether to keep it. I decide it wouldn't hurt, so I pick up the combat knife and its sheathe. I put it back in the sheathe and stash it away before hopping back on Slyphid. Louise, Tabitha and Kirche join me (if you're wondering, the seating order was Tabitha in the front, followed by Kirche, then me, and Louise brought up the back) and Slyphid flaps her wings and starts flying away through the hole in the ceiling she made when she dropped in.

"So how'd you two show up?" I ask as Slyphid begins the journey back to the academy.

"You two were taking too long to show up," Kirche explains. "Tabitha was getting concerned so we came to check up on you. She used some weird kind of wind spell to see from waaaay over there," Kirche says with a gesture over in a direction. "She saw that one guy and got worried, so we came to help with Slyphid."

"Thanks," I grumble as fatigue starts coming over me. I figure that now is as good a time as any to get some rest. I close my eyes and lean back against Louise.

"Jocelyn..." Louise starts hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"What was that all about?" Louise gets out after a pause.

I don't respond. "I'd rather not talk about it. If you're wondering, I'm not pissed at you for jumping in. I'd probably be dead otherwise. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. A mage that abandons her familiar doesn't deserve to be called a mage," she says. I still have my eyes closed, but I can practically hear the smile on her face coming from her tone.

"Heh. Look at you trying to be all cool. Just... Just let me sleep for a bit, okay? We'll talk when we get home."

"Good night, Jocelyn."

"Good night."


	5. Chapter I

**Author Notes:**

And here's that Dreamscape sequence! Originally, much like the last dreamscape thing a few chapters back, this was going to just be a short thing tacked onto the end of last chapter. Unfortunately or fortunately, I started thinking. What came from that thinking? Ideas and details about the dreamscape. I started asking and coming up with answers to question like, "what happened to this wasteland? Who is Angel, and what's her story? Are there any other people in this place besides her?" Things like that. As the details just kept stirring around in my head, I decided to make the Dreamscape it's own little subplot instead of just a little thing at the end of chapters for Jocelyn to bounce her reactions to recent events off of someone. That's about all I got. In terms of both notes and this story. Yeah, this is the last chapter I had planned. I'm going to have to start winging it now. We'll see how well that works out. See you next time.

**Chapter I**

***Dreamscape***

I sat down, hugging my knees to my chest as I leaned against a still standing section of wall. In front of me, Angel was busy working on a corpse, her knife cutting through its neck as she beheads the poor sucker. Its face is far too messed for me to make out anything. The head's got a mop of foppish blonde hair with a lot of it dyed red from blood, but that's all I got.

"What happened to him?" I ask, not really interested.

"Hmm? How long have you been here?" Angel asks as she turns to me. She looks just like she did last time, except this time there's blood on the bandages around her eyes, right where her right eye would be.

"Just got here. No idea how he died, I literally just sat down."

"Sucks for you. You missed a hell of a scrap," Angel says in an oddly playful tone as she goes back to work on the corpse. "Guy tried to kill me, so I replied in kind. He failed to watch his surroundings and got crushed under a rock he had summoned to throw at me. That's how this happened," she says with a gesture to his face, or rather, what's left of it.

"And the beheading?"

"Confirm he's dead," Angel says quickly. "In a wasteland like this it helps to be sure everyone's dead. I'm gonna miss him though. Put up a hell of a fight. Took out my right eye, but worth it."

"You nearly died and you don't care? You're satisfied that your bloodlust is sated?" I ask.

"Still alive and kicking," Angel says with a shrug as the head of the corpse rolls free of the body. "There. Now he can't do anything," she adds as she slips her knife into her pocket.

"Not even if he was still alive," I remark.

"I dunno about that. He could probably bite some ankles or something," Angel says dismissively.

Angel stands up after making sure her work is complete as it needs to be and stretches to loosen up. While she does that I look at my left arm. It still hurts. Works just fine, but it still hurts like hell. I can still feel it. That pain that happened earlier. Not a pleasant memory.

"And what's eating you?" Angel asks as she walks over to me. "All mopey and staring at your arm."

"It's still a bit surreal to have it working at the moment," I explain. "I had it... broken not too long ago."

"And now it's working?" Angel asks. "Lucky you. When I broke limbs I just had to deal with it."

"Sucks for you," I tell her, before returning to silence.

The silence doesn't last, as Angel proceeded to kick me in the head, the back of which then collided with the wall making me lucky enough to experience an excruciatingly painful headache all around. Oh lucky me.

"What the hell was that for?!" I yell at Angel as I get up to stare her down eye-to-bandages.

"Quit your whining," Angel tells me. "Forget about your arm, and forget your moping. Are you alive?"

"Yes."

"Well there ya go! Unlike sad sack over there, you're still kicking. Don't get all whiney and emo on me. You're alive, so take steps to ensure it stays that way. Don't spend any time bitching and moaning, or you could end up like that guy."

"... So don't spend any time worrying about anything or I'll wind up a headless corpse lost in a wasteland?" I ask dryly.

"Yep."

"I'm learning so many life lessons from you," I reply in the same dry tone.

"Hell yeah you are!" Angel says with a grin. A grin that drops rather quickly when we hear people approaching.

An armed troop of about eight guards rushes into the scene and stops when they see us. ... Perhaps armed is a bit of an overstatement. They had swords, but the only thing resembling armor they had was the vests they were wearing.

"We finally found you!" One of them says while glaring at Angel.

"Friends of yours?" I ask.

"Not in a moment," she says rather grimly.

Then the troop notices the corpse, along with the head currently lying near it.

"She's killed the general! Men, on your guard! We must take her down!" The presumably now-leader of the troop says as he and his men draw their swords. This'll be fun.

"You killed a general?" I ask.

"I didn't know he was a general, I just know he tried to kill me!" Angel tells me.

"And why shouldn't we?" The troop leader says. "You're the cause of all this pain and suffering! You deserve hell!"

"... Care to dispute any of that?" I ask.

"Nah, he's probably right about the deserving hell thing," Angel concedes with another shrug. "Though if we're being completely honest, I'm not the cause of this wasteland."

"So now you stoop to lying? Men! At-"

He's interrupted when Angel stabs her knife into his throat. He falls to the floor dead, and the other seven troops stare at us as Angel cleans the blood off her knife.

"What? He was really noisy," Angel says.

"I mean yeah, he talked a liiiiiitle too much, but I think we could have gotten away with not murdering him," I say.

The remaining seven troops steel their resolve and charge the two of us. Three go after Angel, the remaining four charge me. They probably thought I'm an ally of hers or something. Not technically wrong, I guess.

I draw my knife and wait for them to approach. Once they close the distance, they start their attack. Are these guys really soldiers? Their swings are wild, and unfocused. There's not a single sense of training coming from them at all. I feel like five year olds armed with sticks would have a higher chance of hitting me, thought let's be real here, do you expect me to fight kids? Ignoring that, I honestly wonder what's with the guys. There's almost no force behind their assault. People make the mistake of thinking swords are as easy to use as swinging them. That is technically true. However, being skilled with a blade takes far more effort and work. Self teaching is possible, but takes a looooong time to become good at.

I easily dodge a swipe from one guy, and slice his throat. The next one swipes at me three times. I parry all three strikes, then get behind him and stab him in the back. Two left. I save them the trouble, turn on Death Perception and cut them to shreds.

"Feh," was the first sound to come out of my mouth after that.

"What's with that?" Angel asks, having finished the three that attacked her.

"They sucked," I tell her. "I kind of expected more from what looked like knights of some kind."

"Yeah, well don't," Angel tells me. "Anything that remotely resembled a knights corps or system died a while ago when the monarchy fell. Anyone you see these days is just someone who grabbed whatever weapon they could find, and scrounged together armor out of the scrap lying around. There is no longer anything resembling a cohesive structure with leadership, ranks and things like that."

"So headless general over there is self titled?" I ask.

Angel smirks. "Probably. The fact that he actually got any number of people to listen to him in a leadership role is pretty surprising honestly. You know, with the democracy we so clearly have going on in this barren wasteland and everything."

"Maybe enough people really hate you enough to do anything if it means you dead," I offer. "They really seemed to have it out for you."

"Ya think so?" Angel asks.

"Might it have anything to do with them thinking you did all this?"

"I already said I'm innocent. One person armed with a knife can't cause the fucking apocalypse like this," Angel insists. "Well maybe if I were a year or two younger, but it's been like this for the past six or seven years."

Angel gets a look on her face, like she's reminiscing about something. Maybe she has some fond memories of when this place was all nice and beautiful? I'll say it again, I'm not too sure I want to know what this girl considers a fond memory.

"Hey, you want to know what made everything like this, right?" Angel asks me.

"Well... Yeah, I kind of thought that'd be obvious."

"Well you're in luck. I'm feeling kind of nostalgic, and I haven't actually seen it myself, though I suppose we're a little past that point now. Come on, follow me."

With that said, Angel pauses for a bit as if trying to check a direction, then she starts walking. She's got a pretty good sense of direction for a blind person. Maybe they're all really good at navigating? I haven't known enough blind people to know the answer to that question.

"Where we goin'?" I ask as I trail shortly behind her.

"Ground Zero," she tells me. "The place where the shit went down, and we all started having to get used to this hellhole. Well to be fair it's not that bad of a hellhole. I like the quiet, and people are always trying to kill me. Can't ask for any more then a good fight every day. Some are better then others though."

Well she seems to have her priorities in order. Fights and silence and all's well. I could probably argue that, but I won't.

"So what is Ground Zero exactly? Or are you not going to tell me until we get there?" I wonder aloud.

"Oh! You got it without me having to tell you," Angel says with a smirk. "Don't worry, suspense makes the reveal oh so much more impressive, does it not?"

"Whatever. Just lead the way grand leader and navigator."

***Scene Break***

A few hours later, it was getting late, as evidenced by the moon being in the sky. Angel doesn't seem to notice and continues walking.

"You plan on walking all night?" I ask.

"Hm? That late already?" she asks as she turns to me.

"You didn't notice?"

She points at the bandages over her eyes. Right. Considering how good she is at getting around, I had completely forgotten. I'll keep that in mind.

"Either way, I think we should rest and continue this particular trek in the morning, don't you think?" I asked her.

"Yeah yeah, I get ya," she says as she sits down on the ground. "No point in killing myself over a bit of nostalgia."

"Can I ask you something?" I say as I sit down next to her.

"Hmm?" I'll take that as a yes.

"You said something like that earlier. How do you feel nostalgic about someplace like wherever it is we're going?"

"Thought that'd be obvious, it's been years since I've been there," Angel says dismissively as she lies down and "looks" up at the sky.

"... Care to elaborate?"

"Sure. I visited there once or twice before it blew the hell up and killed everything," Angel says.

"So if you were only there once or twice, why does everyone blame you for it?" I ask.

"Because one of those times I was there immediately predated the catastrophe, apocalypse, hell, whatever you want to call it," Angel elaborates. "People saw a need to link the two together, especially considering the real culprit was dead at the time. That's the only person I ever regret killing. Not because I killed him, no the fucker really needed to die. I'm just pissed I killed him at that time. Killed him earlier, we could have avoided this. Killed him later, he would have taken the fault and I wouldn't be the world's #1 criminal. Sucks, but what can you do?"

Angel gets a serious look on her face.

"Don't you dare ask a stupid question like 'did he deserve to die?' I swear I'll slit your throat where you stand for such blatant idiocy," Angel tells me.

"I wasn't going to ask!" I value my life too much to ask that.

"Better not. I kill because I feel like they need to die. That little code you talked about? How you don't kill indiscriminately? I'm slightly more lax, but it still stands. If I'm killing someone, it's because I felt they needed to die. Get it? That fucker needed to die as painfully as possible, and I made sure it happened."

There's something in Angel's tone of voice that... Well, I don't know. I haven't known her very long, but the sheer anger and hatred she has in her voice when she talks about whoever it was that made this wasteland is... well it seems a bit weird coming from her.

"You really hated that person, didn't you?" SHIT JOCELYN WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Do NOT ask the clearly pissed off person about shit that pisses them off!

"HATE? Hate doesn't even begin to fucking describe it!" Angels yells in fury. "When he showed up, everything went to shit! Everything! I'm not going to give you some bullshit like, 'Oh, my life was all sunshine and rainbows and then he showed up and boo hoo, my life sucks now.' But let me tell you, he didn't make it much easier. Killed one of my best friends, killed another guy I was just starting to like being around, made this hellhole and killed who the hell knows how many people in the progress, the bastard really had it out for me. Seriously, he dedicated his whole life to making mine shit."

"Why?" ... 'am I asking such a stupid question?' should probably follow that word.

If anything, Angel seems to calm down at the question. "Dunno. Never got a straight answer from 'im. Ah, who cares. He's dead anyhow, so I'll try not to let it bother me. Anyway, shouldn't you sleep or something? You were the one bugging me about it being late."

I'll take that as the signal that I'm not going to get anything more out of Angel, so I should probably listen to her in this instance. I lied down, closed my eyes, and gave up my consciousness to the realms of sleep. And overdramiticness, apparently.

***Scene Break***

She fell asleep damn near instantly. Don't know why, but I felt like staying up and partying for a bit longer. Odd, considering that chat from earlier did kind of drain me a bit. Well, it's nothing alcohol can't fix. The remains of a brewery happen to be around here, and I feel like getting drunk a bit.

I broke down the door and then rooted through the shelves, trying to find a bottle of something. Found quite a few, but all of them were either empty or broken, that was fun finding those ones. Eventually I found one that wasn't empty and was intact enough to drink from without cutting my mouth to shreds. Not like my face needs any more cuts, so I'm quite content with this.

After getting back, I sat down next to the sleeping form of Jocelyn. I took a swig from my alcohol and lied down on my back, what's left of my gaze directed to the sky. I sigh as I move the bandages around my left eye up a bit to get a slightly better view of the night sky. Slightly better in this case meaning "still can't see shit captain." Except for that one star in the sky. A star only I can see. Whether or not it's there isn't really important.

"Heh," I chuckle to myself for more or less no reason as I take another swig of my alcohol. "Damn. Empty already. Eyesight sure was useful for seeing how much was left."

I shrug to myself and toss the bottle. There's the distinct clink of someone catching the bottle.

"You'll ruin your already terrible health."

"How long have you been here?" I ask the newcomer as I sit up.

"Long enough," comes the terse reply.

"So why are you here?" I ask. "Been how many years since I saw you?"

Silence as my old friend doesn't reply.

"Well don't speak _too_ loudly, you'll wake up the new one over here," I say with a gesture towards Jocelyn.

"You killed him, didn't you?" She asks.

The direction of her voice tells me she's standing behind me, but I'm not going to turn and face her, it's not needed. I debate whether or not to reply. ... Why not?

I sigh. "Can we move this conversation? Hate to wake up the rookie over there."

She doesn't say anything and instead starts walking away from the sound of her footsteps. It'd be kind of rude to leave her, so I follow the sound of her footsteps. After a few more minutes of walking, the sound stops. We should probably be far enough away that the other one won't hear us. Probably. Her hearing could be better then I give her credit for.

"You still there?" I ask her.

"Yes," she tells me.

"And you're still wondering if I killed him?"

"Yes," she repeats.

"Yeah, I did. If we're being honest, he attacked first with intent to kill. Said it was his duty to the people to kill the one who made this land like this."

"No regret?"

I shake my head. "None. Why bother feeling upset over killing an old 'friend' who tries to kill me the first chance he gets just because everyone blames me for this?"

"Not your fault."

"That's what I keep telling people, no one believes me," I reply.

"Then why?"

"Why what? Gonna need to be a wee bit more specific then that." Then it hits me. "Oh, that. I have my reasons. No, I don't feel like going into them much. They don't matter. And what about you? What are your reasons for being here? Are you going to be like him and try to kill me?"

There's silence. Due to the slight sound of hair moving, I'm going to assume she's either shaking or nodding her head. Like the old saying goes, "A wink is as good as a nod to a blind psychopath."

"Bring you back," she says after that slight pause.

Guess she was shaking her head. Semi-universal sign for no. Again, refer to the old saying.

"Why would you bother with wanting to bring me, _me_, back? After everything?" I ask incredulously. "I don't know many people who would want to bring back the person who killed their mom."

She pauses.

"It wasn't your fault," she tells me quietly, the pain in her voice obvious. "Not your fault."

"Then why does remembering it make me feel like shit?" I ask her.

A silence is all that follows my question. At least it registered as silence for me as that memory comes back to me. It took maybe a minute before I realized she was calling my name.

"What?" I ask my old friend.

"Will you come back? For her?"

That catches me off guard.

"For her? That's why your doing this?"

I hear a rustling sound again that I'm going to assume is her nodding.

"Hey, short stuff, news flash. I'M BLIND. Oh, were you not there for that moment? Well, now you know. I can't exactly tell if you're nodding or shaking or what, so that terse talk and use of silence and gestures when possible is cute and all, but makes holding a conversation a little difficult."

"She misses you."

"Yeah, he said something similar, we chatted for a bit, then he started blaming me for making this hellhole then running away and ditching the responsibility," I start chuckling. "Can you believe it? Sorry, but you'll have to forgive me for not exactly being susceptible to tactics like that. I'm not going back. Any plan B?"

That sound again. Nodding or shaking? We just had this conversation. A brief chill of air passes right by my ear with a whistle.

"Use force," she tells me as there's a tap on the ground.

I listen to the air whistling to try and determine where the projectiles are flying in from. I roll to the right to dodge the first barrage, then get up and pull my knife out of my pocket.

"Heh. Fine. This should be a good fight," I mutter humorlessly to myself. I'm going to need it, so I active the only thing I have left to my name. My vision remains gone, but I can still tell where everything is now, like it's all been outlined for me using a sort of sixth sense.

My old friend is in front of me holding what could only be a staff, based on the length. There's something billowing out behind her. A mantle? Her hair? I always thought she'd be cuter if she grew her hair out. I just wish I could see the results of her listening to me.

She taps her staff on the ground again, and another barrage of projectiles forms behind her. They start firing at me. I hold my knife in a reverse grip and start slashing at the projectiles. They're all cut in half and fall to the ground.

She gives her staff a quick wave that nearly escapes my notice, and the floor beneath me slowly freezes over. I lose my footing immediately and hit the ice. The spot where my head connects makes a few cracks, which is fun. I like having a concussion.

The temperature stars dropping rapidly, and it feels like there's a mist or fog over the battlefield. If you're trying to use the fog to obscure my vision, sorry but someone beat you messing with my vision a long time ago. I try to get up, but slip a bit on the ice some more.

"Screw this," I mutter as I decide to just roll until I hit dirt. Turns out the ice patch wasn't that big. It was probably only directed at the area I was standing on. I turn around and try to find her. ... Damn, the fog/mist does work. I can't make out anything, it's all a mix of sensory overload, it hurts my brain.

I turn off my sixth sense and rely on my remaining, still functioning, senses. There's the sound of something crystallizing that I try to pinpoint. Brrrr, it's cold tonight. Wait a minute. I touch my arm and instead of the skin I expected, I feel ice starting to form.

"Shit!" I curse, as I take a knife to the ice which falls apart quite readily. "A magic field that freezes those unfortunate enough to be in it for too long. Pretty good. Obscures everything making it damn hard to find the one who casts it. Were you always this good, or have you improved with time?"

Predictably I don't get a response. Unfortunately, I don't have the pleasure to wait around for her response, or I'll be a nice little popsicle. Damn, can't even track her down. All she needs to do is wait while I flail around and turn to ice. Gotta be something.

I pause as I hear the sound of something flying my way from behind me. I turn around and catch the sharpened ice stick that was about to hit my knife arm and return to sender. There's a swish as the target moves out of the way. I grin.

"Got ya!"

Circuits I had forgotten I had open up, making me faster then I usually am. I close the distance between us in less then a second, and slash at her. She blocks with her staff, and we hold the deadlock. I'd hold longer and maybe hold a conversation while we're face to face, but my legs are starting to freeze over and I'm really not to keen on being iced over. I'll make this quick. I slash along the staff's weak point, cutting it in two. It's still cold, but the field probably takes a bit of time to completely dissipate. I grab her by the collar of her shirt, turn around and push, before walking up to her. I hear a few footsteps moving away from me, followed by a crash.

"Yeah, you might want to remember where you put your ice patches there short stuff," I tell her.

I walk over to where the ice patch was and kneel down over my old friend who's currently now on her back after slipping. I take my knife and pace the edge against her throat.

"And now here we are, all because you gave yourself away. Kinda stupid, if I say so myself. All you had to do was sit still and I never would have caught you. Care to give an excuse?"

She's silent.

"Yeah, I hate one sided battles too. Unfortunately you forgot about some of my old tricks, so that ice field was really your only chance of making it fair. Or is that way you told me where you are? Because freezing someone solid has a very high chance of killing them? You're as bad as he was. For all I said about him trying to kill me, he hesitated when he got the chance, and I pushed him under his own goddamn rock. Twice in a row I win by pushing someone. Let's not make a habit, shall we?"

Still silence.

"What, nothing? You're going to remain silent? Even now when I've got a knife to your throat? All I need to do is move slightly and your dead. Get it? DEAD. Just like him, just like her, just like your mom, dead. Game over."

She doesn't respond.

"GODDAMNIT SAY SOMETHING! ANYTHING! Beg me not to kill you! Ask me to come back one more time! Anything! Please!"

"No."

"... No?"

"I've failed," she tells me. "I have nothing else to say."

"So that's it? You accept it?"

"Yes."

That's it. I rotate the knife so that the point, rather then the edge, is touching her throat. All I need to do is bring down the point, and that's it. Just bring it down. I raise the knife and... just...

...

Dammit.

Dammitdammitdammitdammitdamm itdammitdammitdammitdammitda mmitdammitdammitdammitdammit dammitdammitdammitdammitdamm itdammitdammitdammit dammitdammitdammitdammitdamm itdammitdammitdammitdammitda mmitdammitdammitdammitdammit dammitdammitdammitdammitdamm itdammit-

"GOD DAMN IT!"

The knife comes down.


	6. Chapter 5

**Author Notes:**

This was a fun chapter to write. Wait, no. It wasn't. Let me apologize in advance if you think it sucks, I had a really hard time writing this chapter. Writer's block hit me hard. Doesn't help that I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. Oh well, live and learn on the job.

We got a formal introduction to Annette, after her being mentioned a few chapters ago. Why does Henrietta have a sister in this story? ... Why not? It's the same reason Myoznitnirn showed up early and is a guy, I'm trying something different. Time will tell whether or not it ends up working in my favor. And if it doesn't who cares? I had fun writing for her. I'm hoping I can get more interactions between her and Jocelyn, I thought they bounced off each other pretty well.

Speaking of Jocelyn, she seemed pretty pissed off during huge portions of this chapter. Next chapter she'll probably be calmed which means the FPC (Fucks Per Chapter) count will probably go down a bit. I suppose she doesn't need to use that particular word when she's angry, but it's an easy reminded that she's not in the best of moods. It's an easy way of showing that someone's pissed off.

Also, Jocelyn had that dream/memory thing at the end of the chapter. I hope I'm not being overly transparent with what happened during that particular event, or on the details regarding Joc's brother. Well, subtlety's not one my strong points. All I ask is that if you do figure out things far ahead of time, read anyway. Half the fun in a plot point is getting there, not just the point itself, right? I'm rambling. Whatever. See you next time.

**Chapter 5**

I wasn't very happy on the way back home, that goes without saying. The flight back home from Albion was mostly silent. I blame my bad mood. I think it might have spread to everyone else, because no one seemed to want to talk at all. Well, Tabitha never seems in the mood to talk, but this is different. Due to none of us knowing any healing spells, my arm stayed broken the trip back. I have more experience with broken bones then people my age should, so it's not really a big deal. It's mostly just kind of annoying. Mentally I was still exhausted. I wasn't happy with any of these events. Not at all.

After a bit, I wasn't really paying attention to how much time it took, we did make it back to Tristain and had Slyphid drop us off at the capital, castle, whatever the hell it is. Me and Louise dismounted and Tabitha and Kirche flew off back to the academy to do damage control on the fact that the four of us were missing for a few days with no explanation. They left just in time too, considering Louise and I were almost immediately surrounded by guards. Luckily for all of us, my arm is still broken so I wasn't able to act on my reflexes and draw my knife on them. That wouldn't make a good impression.

"Don't you know that flying above the royal palace is forbidden?" One guard asks us.

"Don't you know we have business with the princess and I'm really in a pissed off mood?" I counter.

"And who are you?" He asks.

"Jocelyn. She's Louise. Now move, we have business with the princess."

The guard puts a hand to the sword hanging at his side and glares at me. "And what business do you have with the princess?"

"It's a secret mission from the princess herself," Louise interjects. "I'm sorry, but we can't tell you."

That makes the guard even more suspicious. Crazy, I know.

"Then I have to deny your request. I cannot allow someone to see the princess without knowing their purpose."

"You misunderstand us," I say, grabbing his collar and pulling him in to headbutt him. He stumbles back and rubs the new dent in his helmet. "It wasn't a request, and I'm not in the mood to deal with things like this at the moment."

The guard glares at me and seems ready to set the rest of his troop against me.

"Guards, stand down!" Says someone new as they approach our sorry group of two.

The newcomer was a girl, taller then Louise but a bit shorter then me. She wore a fancy dress and had long purple hair. No, I mean long. I really don't think you understand just how long it is. It came down to her ankles! She acts as a broom just by walking by! Upkeep on that must be a bitch. Her eyes were the same color as her hair, and had a stern look to them. In terms of her chest... average. Definitely average.

"Is that just how you greet people?" she asks. "Judge their chest size with a smug look on your face? The look is rather unwarranted. They're larger then yours."

"No, I only judge the chests of the females I meet," I admit. "It's a bad habit." Also, small chests are a status symbol where I come from, so don't go feeling all superior just yet.

"Regardless of your... habits, come. Henrietta wishes to speak with you."

"Of course Annette," Louise says.

... Annette. I've heard that name here before. *Jeopardy thinking music*

"Ah! The princess's sister that Louise mentioned once!" I exclaim, pounding my fist in my palm.

"Good guess," Annette says dryly. "Would you like a medal in honor of your astounding deduction skills, oh masterful investigator?"

"No, but cookies would be nice," I counter.

"Fresh out," she informs me.

"Damn."

"So when she uses sarcasm it's okay?" Louise asks, clearly annoyed at what she perceives to be a double standard.

"Yes," I reply without missing a beat.

"... The answer comes that naturally to you?" Louise asks.

"Well yeah. You see that look in her eye? She definitely seems like someone who'd use sarcasm so I'm okay with it. It's when people who don't seem like they would use sarcasm use it that I get a little annoyed."

"Perfectly understandable," Annette says. "I can get that way sometimes also."

"We'll get along, you and I," I say with a mocking smile.

"Don't get too far ahead of yourself," she replies with the same smile as she leads us down a hallway.

Hmm... This walk is far too quiet For an old friend Louise seems rather hesitant to strike up a conversation with Annette. Yeah she had those few words at the beginning of the meeting, but that's it. She seems rather nervous.

"Louise, what's up?" I whisper to her. "Aren't you two childhood friends? You seem nervous. Talk to her or something."

Louise hesitates. "Well... Me and Annette... We didn't get along as well as the princess and I."

"So my sister's the princess but I'm just Annette? How disappointing," Annette says dryly.

"S-s-sorry, Princess Annette," Louise says meekly.

Oooh, how intimidating. Scaaaary. I can totally get why you're scared of her. Ignoring how not intimidating Annette is, and how we're probably not getting any more conversation out of this particular outing, we eventually reached a big, fancy room with a big, fancy door. Well, since the door is fancy I'll assume the room is fancy since we haven't actually entered it yet. I feel fairly safe in my assumption.

... Well, half right. It's not necessarily a bad room, it looks quite good! I was just expecting a bit more. Henrietta was sitting at a desk pouring over some kind of paperwork. Paperwork sucks. Paper in general sucks. It remind me of all the homework I had to make up for after I got out of the hospital. Okay, I suppose I didn't _need_ to make it up, but it didn't feel right ignoring it. ... Still sucked.

"Henrietta, Louise and the other one are here," Annette tells her sister.

... Come on! Seriously? What's with that? At least call her Big Sister or something! Princess Annette, you're doing it wrong.

"Oh!" Henrietta says as she gets up and walks over to us, seemingly overjoyed that we're here and okay. "Louise! I'm so glad to see you."

"We have accomplished the mission as instructed," Louise says, ignoring all the happy feels. "We retrieved the letter and destroyed it."

"... and Wales?" Henrietta asks cautiously.

"Dead," I say. "Shot through the skull."

Henrietta and Annette both seem shocked.

"What... What happened?" Annette asks, since Henrietta seems too busy fighting off tears at the thought of him being dead.

"Well..." Louise starts but trails off incredibly quickly. The atmosphere must have gotten too much for her. She seems uncomfortable.

"M-Miss Jocelyn, are you feeling alright?" Henrietta asks, noting the incredible killing aura I'm emanating.

"Just fucking fine," I force out. "You want to know what happened? That asshole came by and shot Wales in the head and then had the BALLS TO TALK LIKE HE KNEW HIM!"

"P-perhaps this can wait for another time-"

"No. You want a debriefing? I'll give you one," I say interrupting Annette. "So Louise was going to get married to Wardes and that feel through when that bastard showed up. Called himself Myoznitnirn, whatever that means. Let slip that Wardes was a traitor. When the latter confessed to it, I killed him. Stuck a knife in his neck and severed the head from the rest of the body. Then Myoznitnirn shot Wales in the head and decided it was in his best interests to piss me right the fuck off. I decided I really wanted to kill him, so I fought him. It didn't go well," I say with a vague gesture to my not so good arm.

"Henrietta, you're good at healing magic, right?" Louise asks.

"Y-yes, just one moment."

Henrietta walks back over to her desk and picks up a wand. She waves it around and speaks the incantation and finishes with a flourish and a point of the wand towards my arm. After the brief spark at the end of the wand fades away, I feel my bones knit themselves back together, tissues stitch themselves back up and all that goodness that comes with healing magic.

"Thanks," I mumble as I undo the makeshift sling I made with my jacket and put it back on.

"If you don't mind me asking..." Henrietta seems a bit hesitant to ask. "What did that man... Myoznitnirn was it? What did he do to anger you so much?"

Louise opens her mouth to say something, then falls silent as my murderous aura fills the room again. Seeing that I'm not willing to talk about it at all, and judging me unlikely to stab her for talking, Louise steels her resolve and speaks up.

"He called her Joc," I flinch slightly at the mention of that nickname, clamping down on the instinct to lash out. "And he mentioned something about her brother."

"You have a brother?" Annette asks.

"No," I respond. "And that's all I'm saying on the matter. I'm leaving now. Thanks again for the arm. Sorry I didn't stay and chat longer, but I'm in a really shitty mood right now. Good bye Princess Annette, Princess Henrietta."

With that I turn around and walk out the door, leaving the three there.

_... Shut up. I don't care how I might have come across to them, I'm in far too bad a mood to want to deal with anyone. So please, just shut up and let me deal with it on my own. I'm good at that. I thought you'd know that better than anyone Big Bro. So just leave me alone for a day or two, okay? You can handle that, right? We've went longer without talking, haven't we? I think we can go a day or two._

***Scene Break***

Me and Louise we able to get a ride back to the academy courtesy of Henrietta asking some guard to taxi us back there. How nice. The hours long ride back did little to improve my mood. Sucks that it's far too early to sleep it off so I guess I'll just have to deal with being really pissed off. Things were pretty normal when we got back, though people kept throwing me and Louise odd glances and whispering when they thought we weren't looking. A quick glare and they shut up nicely. ... I like this power.

"What'd you tell these people?" I asked Kirche once we met up with her and Tabitha again. "They're not bothering us about why we were missing which is nice, but they won't shut up about it either, and worse yet, they're not subtle about it. Kind of annoying."

"They kept wondering what made us have to leave for a few days and students wouldn't be satisfied with only a 'no comment,' would they? I obviously couldn't tell them we were on a secret mission for the princess, so I came up with an excuse or two," Kirche says, worrying me about what her idea of an excuse could possibly be.

"So what'd you tell them instead?"

"Elopement," Tabitha replies in Kirche's stead.

"... Please tell me you didn't."

"Don't worry, I only told that to a few people," Kirche says with a wave of her hand. "I told other people that you were off to find some ancient and mystical way to fix your master's magic. A few others... Shoot, what was it Tabitha? I forgot."

"Assassination attempt, laying low," Tabitha says. She may not have missed a beat with that reply but she sure missed the irony in the statement.

"Uh huh. Yeah, makes perfect sense," I reply laying the dry wit on thick. "Not like we know any assassins who could be offended by such an accusation. I like it. Explains the rumor mill going wild, as mush as I would've liked it to be silent as possible."

"Now that I think about it, what _was_ the secret objective anyhow?" Kirche asks. "I know we had to go to Albion to get it, but not much beyond that."

"Like I said, pizza delivery," I tell her." We had to get objective A and either destroy it or bring it to point B. The object is obviously classified information, level 7 clearance or higher is required to access the necessary information regarding the mission. You two have level 1 clearance. Ehhh, maybe level 2, depending on my mood. Would you like to apply for a promotion?"

"Yes," Tabitha says with a nod.

"Promotion denied, please try again later. With cakes, if possible. Thank you for coming, have a nice day," I say with a curtsy before walking off. "I was serious about the cakes by the way. Depending on what type, you could easily get up to like, level 4 clearance."

With that anecdote put out there, I turn and head back to HQ to await further instructions. On the way back to mine and Louise's room I ran into Siesta.

"Ms. Jocelyn! How nice to see you again," Siesta says with a small bow.

"Likewise," I respond.

... Silence. Um... Next topic?

"You're not going to ask?" I wonder aloud to try and break the silence.

"Ask what?" Siesta says with a rather knowing smile.

"You're not going to ask why me, Louise, Kirche and Tabitha were missing from the academy for a few days? You're just going to let the topic sit?"

"The staff and students take notice if things like that happen," Siesta begins. "If someone, especially someone as famous as Ms. Valliere-"

"Infamous seems a touch more accurate," I correct. "Unlike me, the students here don't seems to like her explosions."

Siesta chuckles. "I always thought they were good for some entertainment as well. In any case, students and staff alike take notice when something as noticeable as that goes away. People wouldn't stop talking about it. Many thought they had finally gotten fed up with Ms. Valliere and expelled her from the academy. Then there was this ridiculous rumor I heard recently of you and her eloping," _Goddammit Kirche._ "Honestly, I think that even if you aren't tired of people asking or talking and whispering about it, I am. So don't you worry about whether or not I plan on asking about your private business."

"Cool. I didn't feel like talking about it, so I'm glad we're on the same page here."

"Is there anything else you wished to discuss? I'm not all that busy if you were perhaps worried about that," Siesta informs me.

"Um... Well I was thinking about giving back that knife I borrowed. I got a new one, so I figured I might as well return stolen property."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Siesta says with another smile. "We have plenty, and I'm sure you'd feel better with a spare. Please, feel free to keep the knife. Just don't steal any others, okay?"

"I'm an assassin, not a thief. Kleptomania isn't high on my list of skills."

"Never hurts to be too careful, does it?"

Can't argue with that logic. Well, theoretically I could, but I don't _want_ to argue it is the problem there. ... I feel like I was going somewhere with that train of thought. Disregarding that, and since I can't think of any other topics of conversation I wanted to bring up, I believe it's time I take my leave. I think it's almost night time, haven't looked out a window recently so I don't know for certain, but I think if nothing else I'm with today.

After saying goodbye to Siesta I head back to my room (mine and Louise's room technically, but it is technically my room), meet up with Louise and get ready for bed. *sigh* Today kind of sucked. Not as bad as the day we left Albion, and really not even that bad in general. I'm just bitching and moaning about how I haven't gotten over that trip to Albion. Ignoring how much he pisses me off... No, there's no ignoring it. How the hell did he know? Or maybe he doesn't, and it was a lucky guess? Pretty specific guess. Maybe he doesn't know? I did snap at Guiche when he called me that. I might have slipped up and mentioned him out loud once or twice. If that's where Myoznitnirn got the information, then that just brings up a potentially much more frightening possibility. ... What the hell am I doing, I should be sleeping! Eff this thinking shit, I'm tired as hell.

***Scene Break***

_The boy screams. A scream of anguish and pain. A scream that was most certainly earned, if the knife stabbing him in the stomach is any indication. The knife moves to the side, slicing his stomach, causing an overflow of blood to start gushing from the wound. The knife isn't very long, so the cut isn't extraordinarily deep. His organs still aren't visible past the flow of blood. Maybe when he finally bleeds out and there's no more blood then you could see the organs. That'd be something. I've never seen a human's organs before._

_He tries fighting back against the blade. He grabs the knife and tries to wrestle it free. All he accomplishes is scrapping his hand on the blade, cutting it in several places making him start to lose even more blood. There's no point in trying. You're not strong enough to steal that knife away. You're too weak from losing all that blood, the gash in your stomach and you're too young to hope to be all that strong. You can't hope to accomplish anything, so please don't try._

_The knife gets removed from his stomach, only for it to go right into his chest, just barely missing his heart. How... disappointing. That probably would have killed him outright. How's he still alive? Just die, please. Don't put yourself through this. Just let it happen, there's nothing either of us can do about it. Please stop. Dying is easier then whatever you're trying to accomplish._

_He looks me in the eye and opens his mouth to say something. Instead, he just coughs out an enormous amount of blood that gets all over my shirt. How annoying. He just got this for me, he should know how much I like it. It even had a baby panda on it._

_The knife digs itself as far into his chest as it can, all the way to it's hilt. He coughs up some more blood. Wow. Humans sure are impressive, what with how much blood we have. To be able to bleed so much from such a gash in the stomach and still be able to have enough for his hands to bleed, and his chest to bleed even more on top of that and cough up some blood. I wonder how much we have to bleed out before we die. I should test that one day._

_He opens his mouth again and manages to finally get his one word out. His voice was rather hoarse, likely due to the shouting from earlier. As such, it's almost impossible for me to hear this last words. That would have been disappointing. _

_"Joc..."_

_He doesn't get any more out. If he hadn't been stabbed in the throat he probably wouldn't have gotten any other words out anyway. He looked ready to faint from just that part of the word, and it seems he is finally starting to lose consciousness from all the blood that's now on the floor. That's nice, maybe he'll stop being in pain now. What was once a nice grayish floor is stained red from all the blood. It all seems so unnatural. There's far too much red everywhere. So much red. I... hate the color red. I hate it._

***Scene Break***

"Jocelyn! Jocelyn!"

My eyes snap open, I jackknife into a sitting position and any breath I can get comes in short gasps. No no no, not this, not now. Calm down, breathe, breathe, breathe. Dammit, I am _not_ having a panic attack here.

"It's okay, I'm okay," I get out between ragged breaths. Damn it, just calm down! Breathe in slowly, and just calm down. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

I take a deep breath and start trying to reorganize my thoughts and not say something I'll probably regret later. "I'm okay, I'm okay. What's up Louise?

Louise doesn't seem convinced. "You don't seem okay."

"Peachy keen. Absolutely fine, why do you ask?"

"You were screaming," Louise tells me. "You were practically thrashing about and yelling at the top of your lungs."

"... I didn't scream anything I'll regret later, did I?" I ask, already dreading the answer.

"You were screaming 'Don't hurt him.'"

"... Fuck."

"Jocelyn, what was all that about?" Louise actually seems really concerned. How nice.

"Nothing. Nothing worth worrying about. Go back to sleep," I tell her. "And don't worry, it shouldn't happen again. Hasn't happened in years, so I doubt it'll happen again anytime soon. Sorry about waking you up, let's hope we didn't wake the whole goddamn academy. Sorry."

I lie back down and close my eyes. "Just go back to sleep Louise."

It's about a minute before I hear Louise lie down next to me. I sigh. _Damn it. Just don't think about it. Simple. No need to let it blow out of proportions again. It's just a memory, nothing to think about too much._

My breath starts slowing down as any feeling of panic starts to fade away. Eventually I close my eyes and go back to sleep. No dreams this time. Nothing but as peaceful a sleep as he allows me.


	7. Chapter 6

**Author Notes:**

... I have no idea why I have so much fun writing the Water Spirit like that. The idea of this big, grand spirit, actually being an energetic little girl with a motor mouth... The scene wrote itself. I don't think she'll be showing up again, but I have no idea what I'm doing so who the hell knows. For all I know she could kill off the entire cast and conquer the story for her own malicious ends, I don't know. I have far too much fun with those kinds of characters.

Moving on. I tossed around the idea of this chapter being either another dreamscape chapter, or cover the "Siesta has been forcibly hired by Count Mott" thing that was in the anime only. I thought that last one would be kind of neat since I haven't done that before, but that was put off in favor of this. After the last three chapters with Myoznitnirn showing up, a dreamscape with Angel killing one of her best friends and then the panic attack and reactions to past events, I felt like a bit of a breather would be nice. Just a moment to let Joc breathe and not worry about the other things. There was a discussion at the end of this chapter between Montmorency and Jocelyn about the person Jocelyn said she loved, but it got cut. Nothing incredibly plot-relevant came up, it didn't really have a point. Maybe It'll come up again later. Hell if I know.

A few more things. I liked writing Katie, so I'd say don't be surprised if the Water Spirit comes back, they will converse. I'm way too fond of that idea. Don't hold your breath for it though. Next, no, I don't know why the Water Spirit is completely aware of the fourth wall, I just loved the idea too much. It's way too much fun to write, and I'm liable to write things I have fun writing. I think that about covers it, see you next time.

**Chapter 6**

I did not feel like getting up in the morning. I had far too shitty a sleep last night, so I wanted nothing more then make up for it in the morning. And Louise was willing to let it happen! She still had to go to her classes and everything, but she didn't bother dragging me with her, she left me there to sleep out some. Probably wants to let me be after last night. Nightmares don't make for good impressions on anyone. Well, I don't plan on having another panic attack, so we shouldn't have to worry about it. Still, that may not have been my worst one, it was probably the worst time or place to have a panic attack, that's for sure. At least at home mom and dad already know about it, and on the job I usually sleep alone so no one's around to witness it. I really don't want to explain it to anyone here why I was screaming at the top of my lungs in the middle of the night while sleeping in Louise's bed with her. No matter what way I spin it, the rumor mill will just go freaking bonkers. That's how weird it would be, I have to use "bonkers" to describe it. Whateeeeeever. Sleeping makes me feel better. Well, it does when it's not busy making me feel worse.

"Excuse me."

...

"Excuse me, Ms. Jocelyn?"

"Five more minutesss," I complain.

"Ms. Jocelyn, do you wish to be washed along with the bedding? I feel like it wouldn't be a very pleasant experience. Washboards aren't very comfortable, I'm sure."

"AwwwwAH!"

*THUD*

"Ow. Not my most graceful landing," I muse as I start pulling myself up off the floor.

"Do you roll out of the bed and hit the floor often?" Siesta asks me, a weird smirk on her face.

"No, I'd say that's the first time," I tell her as I grab my glasses off the nightstand and place them in their proper position. "Anyway, what was that about washboards? I'll have you know that Louise is very comfortable."

...

"What's with the smirk?" I ask Siesta. "Wait. Oh. Sorry, I just got up. I really don't know what I'm saying."

"Don't worry. Your relationship with Ms. Valliere is none of my business or concern."

That smirk says otherwise. You are very good at smirking, I'll have you know.

"Though, if I may," Siesta begins. "What exactly qualifies someone as comfortable?"

"You know, nice and comfortable," I say, not really answering the question. "Easily huggable. Like a pillow."

"I see," Siesta says. "Well, I'll leave you to it. If you'll let me take these," she adds as she starts picking up the bedding. "I need to clean these and get them set back up before Ms. Valliere comes back."

Right. So now I need to do something to kill time... Guess I'll go see what's up around the academy. I stretch to work out the kinks a bit and head for the door.

"Ms. Jocelyn."

"Yes, Siesta?"

"Far be it from me to tell you what to do, but wouldn't it be advisable to at least be dressed decently?"

"?"

Siesta nods her head. No, wait. She's trying to send me a sign by using her gaze as a pointer. I look down to where she's pointing with her eyes. I don't see anything.

"So, you don't care that the academy will see you walk around, panties exposed?" Siesta asks.

"They're plain white, no one's going to pay attention."

"I see. Well, I won't stop you. Just try to think about how people could react to something like that."

Oh yeah, there are some people who would probably react oddly. Don't know why, white's really not a noticeable color. Still, I probably should put on my skirt. But it's hoooooot today.

"I apologize for not being able to control the weather," Siesta tells me.

"Not your fault you weren't born an elemental spirit. That aside, you need any help with those sheets and shit? I don't have anything else to do today."

"No, it's quite all right Ms. Jocelyn," Siesta says as she gathers up all the sheets in a bundle. "I'm very good at this, what with it being my job and everything."

"I get it. Well, offer's always open."

"I appreciate it, Ms. Jocelyn," Siesta says with as good a bow as she can muster while holding a bundle of cloth and stuff. "I bid you a good day."

"See you around."

With one last dip of the head, Siesta heads out the door, laundries and bedsheets in hand. Hmmm. Well now what do I do? Gotta find some way to pass the time. ... Guess I'll just walk around and see if anyone's doing anything. Think I'll leave my jacket in Louise's room, it's not the right weather for it. With all that in mind, I get ready to head out and walk out the door.

***Scene Break***

Boooooooooooring. No one was doing anything! Louise was busy studying, Kirche was dating like twenty guys at once, and Tabitha was reading a book. I joined her for a bit, but reading isn't a viable way for me to pass a day. Several hours sure, but not a day. It was still nice, especially since the library was pretty chill, compared to outside where it was really hot out, as discussed previously. Well, it's getting a bit late, but I still have a few hours to kill before going to sleep. Now what? Hmm. I wonder how Montmorency and Katie are doing. Haven't seen them since I first got here. Let's go check out what's up with those two. Let's see if we can't find one or the other.

Now I just need to find either of them, and that one could probably give me directions to find the other. Well, Montmorency shouldn't be too hard. She is the same year as Louise so her dorms shouldn't be too hard to locate. I just need to walk around for long enough and eventually a quest relevant NPC will pop up and lead me to my location of choice.

"Excuse me, is there any particular reason you're standing there in the middle of the hall?"

"No, just waiting for someone to ask so I can ask for directions," I say as I turn and look at whoever just addressed me. "Oh! Katie. That makes things easier."

"Hmm? Oh! You're that girl who helped me and Montmorency with Guiche a while ago!"

Astute observation, sweet cheeks.

"I'm sorry, I don't believe I ever did learn what your name was," Katie says sheepishly.

"Jocelyn. Nice to see you again Katie," I say as I extend a hand.

"Likewise," she says with a smile and a handshake. "I'm sorry, but you mentioned that I make things easier? How so?"

"You see, I'm addicted to, and have a disease that makes me die if I don't consume, soufflés. You showing up simplifies things. You can make some damn good soufflés, so I figured you could help."

"That... That was sarcasm, right?" Katie asks.

Great deduction skill, hot stuff.

"Yep. Just wanted to mess with you a bit. Anyway, I was bored and felt like checking up with some people. I remembered I haven't seen you or Montmorency so I figured I'd check up and see how things were going. I also have nothing else to do because I'm a lonely, pathetic and depressed human being who has very few friends."

"That... That last part was sarcasm, right?" Katie asks, sounding all nervous again.

"The world may never knoooooooooooooow," I reply.

"You're rather weird, if you don't mind me saying," Katie tells me.

"I get that a lot, don't worry," I assure her.

"So, you wanted to see Monmon?" Katie asks.

"Monmon?"

"Oh! Sorry, Montmorency, everyone calls that don't they," Katie seems a bit embarrassed. Perhaps a bit more then she should in this situation. ... NO. BAD JOCELYN. NO SHIPPING PEOPLE YOU BARELY KNOW.

"I can respect good friends giving each other nicknames," I say with a nod. "Just, please don't give me one."

Katie giggles. "We're hardly close enough for that. Very well Jocelyn, would you like me to take you to Montmorency?"

"Lead the way grand leader and navigator," I tell her.

"With pleasure, Jocelyn," Katie says with a smile.

On the way to Monmon's room, me and Katie made small talk about what's up with her and Montmorency. After the thing with Guiche, Monmon and Katie really hit it off. They would hang out, talk about all the hilariously stupid things Guiche tried to pull, and just things they had in common, interests, Katie likes to bake, Monmon likes to brew potions, things like that. Girlfriend stuff. Platonic girlfriend stuff, not romantic girlfriend stuff. As far as she's told me. BAD JOCELYN! STOP THAT CRAP!

Disregarding my habit of thinking about how hot girls making out is (GET your minds out of the gutter!), after Katie led me to Louise's room, I noticed something odd.

"And what would that be?" Katie asked.

"Well Kit-Kat-"

"Kit-Kat?"

"It fits," I tell her. I mean, with the chocolate colored hair and... Who am I kidding, I'm just really hungry right now. Still fits. "Just... don't give me a nickname. I'm quite fond of my name, no need to change it." Just accept yet another few words from the hypocrite formally known as Jocelyn.

"Well... Well okay then," Kit-Kat doesn't seem sure about something but puts it behind her. "You were saying?"

"Well, I was just kind of surprised. I thought they might be close since they're in the same year, but Louise's room is literally just a few doors down. Go figure. Well, thanks Kit-Kat. See you again later?"

"I look forward to talking with you again," Katie says with a smile. "Goodbye Jocelyn. Tell Monmon I said hello."

"Will do."

Kit-Kat went back where we came, probably to head back to her year's dorms. I stood in front of Montmorency's door and prepared to knock.

"Wh-what are you doing?! Get off me!" A feminine voice shouts from inside the room.

"But my darling flower-" An even more feminine voice starts before being cut off by something crashing to the floor.

...

Maybe I should open this door. Seems like something might be happening over there. Yeah, that seems like a good idea. That thought in mind, I braced myself and opened the door. What I saw was a room that was more of less full-on FUBAR, with a rather out of order Montmorency on the floor in the middle of the room with a Guiche trying to climb on top of her.

"Well that explains the horribly feminine voice," I muse to myself.

"What did you expect, I'm trying to get him off me!" Montmorency cries as she pushes Guiche off. "Give me a hand, please!"

I walk over, pick up Guiche and put him in a full nelson to give him pause.

"Unhand me, heathen!" Guiche exclaims. "I need to be with my darling buttercup!"

I respond by giving what should be anyone's default reply. I change my grip on him and then I suplex the bastard, knocking him unconscious.

"Taken care of for now," I say as I look over my work with a proud smile on my face. "Oh, and I was talking about Guiche there, with the horribly feminine voice, just to clarify."

"Thanks for getting him off me, I guess," Montmorency says as she gets up. "You didn't have to knock him unconscious. Or insult his voice."

Yes I did. Did you hear what was coming from his mouth? Anyone who can call some their darling buttercup with a straight face deserves a suplex or two. Or to be put on a train, and then suplex that train.

"Hmm. Oh! You're the girl who helped me and Katie with Guiche the first time," Monmon notices. "Thanks again. Who would have thought you'd be helping me with Guiche again."

"Speaking of which, Katie says hi. Also, what happened? I mean, Guiche was a two-timing dickbag, but calling me a heathen and looking ready to perform unspeakably evil deeds to you seems a bit much."

Montmorency pauses. "Nothing happened. I invited him for a drink, but I guess he just can't hold his alcohol very well."

I take a look around the room and absorb the necessary information into my mindosphere.

"Let me just say, you did pretty good on the lie. You kept a consistent tone and didn't stutter or trip over your words. Unfortunately you paused before you started talking which makes it pretty obvious you were trying to think up a convincing lie. Still, a much better effort then most."

"I didn't lie!" Montmorency insists. "What evidence do you have that would even let you conceive such an idea?!"

I grin. I love detective work. It's the second best part of my day, right behind getting Louise's cute side out.

"First, let me retract my previous statement. Not the praise, that actually increases considering you didn't use a lie so much as a half-truth, so props to you. The hesitance to speak still kills it, but whatever. Second, the truth is pretty easy to spot just by using a few key things. The way the room is arranged, plus the yelling earlier as well as what appeared to be genuine gratitude when I helped you out does all point to an actual struggle taking place. I won't deny that. The part about it being because he can't hold his liquor is wrong."

I'd point out that she admitted to underage drinking as opposed to whatever she's trying to pull, but this world does seem to be based on old-timey times. Me and my modern day New York born brain can't comprehend such a cross cultural values dissonance, so that one gets to slide.

"What makes you say t-that?" Montmorency says.

I smirk, but don't clue her in that her stutter more of less acts a confession in and of itself.

"Firstly, I'm no CSI computer capable of recreating a crime scene from before the crime happened, but even I can tell that the table over there on the floor used to be upright, and if you were having a nice dinner date, wouldn't that be the proper place to do it?"

"Your point?"

"Scattered around the table are bits of glass from what are clearly two drinking glasses, as well as the remains of a wine bottle. There's even some wine spilled near the glasses and bottle, implying they were tossed with the table before you could even finish your drink. Sucks, but what can you do. Curiously, the wine spilled near one of the glasses is oddly discolored, compared to the way the wine usually is."

"So you're a wine connoisseur now?" Montmorency asks, sounding a bit skeptic.

"No, I don't drink. Makes it harder for me to think straight, which really hurts the job, but I digress. I know the wine usually isn't that color because of the wine spilled from the actual wine bottle that's pooling around it. The two are noticeably different, which I think means someone put something in that wineglass. And yes, that type of practice I am familiar with. Of course the question of what was actually put in the glass now arises. A poison or other potion, perhaps? Katie did mention you were fond of brewing."

Montmorency is silent as the night, waiting for me to try and implicate her.

"So now I have two theories. Which would you like to hear first, one or two?"

"Um... How do I pick, I don't know either of the theories," Montmorency says.

Right, this isn't like good news/bad news. "Alright." I hold up both my hands, then put them behind my back. "Okay, one is theory one, two is theory two."

"So I'm picking one or two?"

"One's the first theory, two's the second theory."

"I chose two."

I take my left hand out from behind my back and hold it up, with two fingers up.

"Wait, you were supposed to pick right or left!"

"You said pick a number!"

"Yes! Earlier when you couldn't decide! Here you were supposed to pick right or left, which would get you one or two!"

"You should have explained it better!"

"I thought it was self explanatory!"

"Well apparently not!"

"Guh... Montmor-"

"Shaddup, the girls are arguing!" I say as I punch Guiche in the face to make sure he stay unconscious a bit longer. "Ah, whatever. Okay, my first theory is that you put something in Guiche's drink to do something, but it either backfired or didn't have the effect you thought it would. Second, and much less likely, is that Guiche tried to put something in your drink, like a poison, and when that didn't work he decided to do it himself."

"Guiche would never do something like that!" Montmornecy defends the comatose Romeo. "He's a hopeless romantic and a bit of an idiot, not a murderer!"

"Which means you're admitting that theory one is correct?" I ask.

"Of course it's not righ-"

"Oh, in that case then there's no problem, Guiche just can't have alcohol and you'll be fine if I were to turn around and walk out. And if this just an isolated event, we won't have to worry about it happening again, only with the possibility of nobody being around to help out. If that's the case..." I shrug, turn around and take one step.

"Wait!"

I turn around and face Monmon. "Yes?"

Montmorency sighs. You can be a bit of a bitch at times," she tells me.

I shrug. "Guilty as charged. For what it's worth I didn't plan on actually leaving you to deal with it on your own, I just was getting real tired of you not admitting anything. Now. What did happen?"

"I tried giving Guiche a love potion," Montmorency admits at last. "I didn't think it would be that strong."

"Any particular reason?"

"I know he's a two-timing idiot, as has been made abundantly clear, but I... I still..."

"Hey, I get it," I assure the girl who looks like she's about to break down. "I know the feeling."

"I just wanted him to look at me only, but he still glances at other girls with perverted stares," Montmorency says. "I thought the love potion would keep him focused on me. I didn't think it would do this to him."

"Montmorency, I get I-"

"And now if word gets out, I could go to prison!" By this point the weight of her actions seems to have hit her like a speeding truck, since she falls to her knees and looks ready to just fall apart. "Oh Founder, I could go to prison. Love potions are illegal! I won't be able to see Guiche or Katie, or my friends. My family would disown me and oh Founder why did I think this was a good idea I'm such an idiot who-"

"Montmorency. Shut it, point made, I understand completely," I tell her. "Trust me. I know what it's like to be in love with someone and not know if they like you back and just worrying about it the entire time and wanting to do _anything_ to make sure they love you back. I get it. You also have no idea how familiar I am with having done numerous things that would get me sent to jail for numerous life sentences. I get it. I empathize with you so hard right now. I can help, if you want me too."

"You... You'd help me?" She asks. I nod. "You would help a criminal like me?"

Look, Bonbon, even disregarding Mathilda from a while back, I have helped people who have done things that would make grown men shit the bed in terror, and have done things that would make _those_ people shit the bed in terror. The fact that you tried to make your would-be-boyfriend love you is not going to turn me away. Of course I don't tell her all that, I just nod.

"Alright, first off. Is there a cure?"

I mean, I _might_be able to kill the love potion's effects with my Mystic Eyes. It worked with that drunk man in Siberia, but I'd rather not risk cutting off something important off of someone who's kind of important.

"I... I could probably brew an antidote," Bonbon says. "Wait... no. I used all my money on making the actual love potion. Most of the ingredients are easy to get, but there's no way I could afford a tear of the water spirit."

"Enlighten the resident dumbass. Tear of the Water Spirit means..." I mean I could probably make an educated guess, but I'd hate to be wrong and come across as a bigger idiot then I actually am. Damn my Earthling origins!

"It's a part of the Water Spirit's body." Bonbon notices I'm hopelessly lost and sighs. "An elemental spirit that resides in Ragdorian Lake."

"That's pretty simple actually. So we just go to Ragdorian Lake, ask the water spirit for a tear, come back make a potion and everything's fine?"

"You really think it would be that easy?" Montmorency asks, sounding very annoyed.

"Are spirits that hard to negotiate with?" I ask.

"Have you ever talked to a spirit?"

"Have you?"

"... No, but my family has had a longstanding contract with the water spirit, so if anyone could do it, I could!"

"Then the problem is?"

"Ragdorian is hours away by horse, at best," Montmornecy says. "There's no way we could get there and back quickly. It would take almost a day!"

"By horse, right?"

"Of course! How else would we get there?"

"Gimme a second, I'l be right back. Oh, if Guiche starts waking up, just smack him upside the head. That should sort things out a bit."

With that, I exit the room and head for another person's dorm. I knock on the door and they open up.

"Hey Tabby, Guiche accidentally drank a love potion and me and Montmorency need to head to Ragdorian Lake to negotiate with the water spirit to get a piece of it's body, mind if we borrow Slyphid to make the trip a bit shorter?"

"Go ahead."

"Bitchin."

With that I grab Tabitha's hand and drag her to Bonbon's room.

"Alright Bonbon, Tabby has volunteered to help us out by loaning us Slyphid to make the ride a bit easier, that help any?"

"Bonbon?"

"Shit, sorry. Kit-Kat called you Monmon, and-"

"Kit-Kat? You mean Katie?" Montmorency asks.

"Yeah. Nice girl. Anyway, we have dragon transport now. That should make the trip a bit easier, right? I imagine dragons are a fair bit faster then horses, right?"

"I... Well yes but... Tabitha is this okay? We can borrow Slyphid?"

Tabitha nods.

"I imagine you'd like to come with us though, right?" I ask Tabby. "You know, make sure your dragon is taken care of, right?"

Tabitha nods.

"Bitchin. I think we're about ready to head out. If we're fast we could even get back in time to get some sleep. Should we head out? I see no reason not to."

"I guess but what about Guiche?" Montmorency asks. "We can't just leave him here. Who knows what would happen!"

"Good point," I admit. "But if we take him with us, who knows what he'd try to do to you should he wake up. As viable as punching him unconscious every time is as an option, I'd rather avoid giving anyone possible brain damage."

"Idea," Tabby offers.

***Scene Break***

"Still not sure about this," Montmorency says as our flight continues.

"What's there to not be sure about? He won't bother us, and when he pops out he'll become a beautiful butterfly," I reply.

"But how can her breathe in all of that? Is he even still alive?"

In response I give a slight tap on the bundle of cloth that's also on the trip with us.

"My beautiful, darling buttercup Montmornecy, is that you?" Guiche asks. "Please, untie me so that we can finally be together! Oh, please just let me see your face! Your beautiful face that makes the stars in the sky pale in comparison!"

"The little idiot's still breathing," I tell her. "If anything, I'm pretty sure that little cloth cocoon is all that's keeping us sane. Even that's pretty difficult when he spouts shit like that. Tabby, how much longer till we get there?"

"We arrived," Tabitha says as she starts flying Slyphid lower to the ground to park.

"Really? Shit, dragons are way faster then I thought they would be," I muse.

When we land I make sure to pet Slyphid's head and let her know how good a job she did. That important part done, we drag Guiche's cloth cocoon to the edge of the lake and stare at it.

"Okay, anyone know how to contact the spirit?" I ask.

"I can," Montmorency says. She pulls a frog out of her pocket, then pricks her finger with a pin and puts a drop of blood or two on the frog before gently putting him on the floor. "Okay Robin. I need you to go in that lake and find the water spirit. She should recognize my family's blood line, so you don't have to worry, okay?"

With that, Robin the frog turns around and hops off into the lake.

"You got a frog familiar?" I ask.

"Robin's very useful," she tells me. "She's small, so she's easy to carry around, and the poison she creates has many different applications in potion brewing."

That's nice. I'm just good at killing things. I wish I was a frog. Frogs are cool. Just hopping around, poisoning things sometimes and just generally not giving a shit. Frogs are awesome. Speaking of which, eventually Robin the frog came back and hopped back up to Montmorency. And nothing else happened.

"Shouldn't a spirit be showing up or something?"

"Robin, what happened?" Bonbon asks her pet frog.

Before the frog starts talking back, we notice something out on the lake. It looked like a person had just pushed their head just high enough above water to see and converse with us. Only problem? The head was made of water. A body made completely out of water. I wonder who this could be.

"Um... Hi!" The spirit out in the center of the lake says, even waving hello. "Okay, I know this is a little unexpected, but could I talk to Jocelyn a bit?"

"How does she know your name?" Bonbon asks me.

"I don't know, I've never met any spirits," I tell her.

"It's nothing to worry about, I just want a quick chat!" The Water Spirit says. "Just step forward, close to the water, please?"

I look at Montmorency and Tabitha. "What do you think?"

"It's a spirit, there's no way it can't be trustworthy, right?" Montmornecy asks.

"Unsure," Tabby adds.

... Screw it, I'm going. Worst comes to worse I can just fight it. You know, test to see if that, "kill a god" thing is possible. Don't see why it wouldn't be. I step up to the water and wait for the water spirit to do something. Hopefully it does it quick, the waves are getting in my shoes. And then a bubble formed around me and pulled me into the center of the lake.

"What the hell?!"

"Sorry!" The Water spirit says, before turning to the group. "I'm just borrowing her, I'll bring her right back!"

Then my bubble dips below the surface of the water and is pulled down to the bottom of the lake. Great. At least I have my protective bubble of air and a pressure that won't kill me.

"The lake's not that deep, you don't need to worry," The Water Spirit assures me as she hops into the bubble with me. Now that I'm actually look at her as opposed to a small bit of her head that was bobbing above the surface, I can actually get a good look as to what this ages old spirit really looks like. ... She looks like a kid.

"I'm a young spirit! I'm not thousands of year's old like other spirits!" The Water Spirit complains. "Why does everyone assume that just because I'm a spirit I'm thousands of years old? It's not very nice you know."

I certainly don't think they expected her to look so young. Her body was a few inches shorter then Louise, and she had antenna like things-

"They're twin tails, not antenna!" Water Spirit insists as she grabs her "hair" and looks sullen. As sullen as she could, considering all her facial features are just water. It weird. You can certainly see recognizable human features, a mouth, a nose, eyes, and the like, but they're clearly not real, just reshaped water on the body. It's odd. Luckily, other, more sensitive, parts of the human body aren't present, considering she's not wearing any type of clothing.

"Huh? Should I give myself those parts?" She asks as she puts a hand to her flat chest and looks down at a certain spot ever so slightly below "her" waist. "I mean I thought about it, going for 100% accuracy and everything, but the story's rated 'T' and those aren't 'T' rated details-"

"Would you stop reading my mind! It's really annoying and scary having someone else in my mind."

"Relax, I'm not reading your mind," The Water Spirit assures me with a big, watery smile. "I'm just reading the chapter as it's being written. It's kind of weird reading it when I'm talking, because then I'm reading what I literally just said, which is kind of weird."

... What?

"Never mind, why did you bring me down here?" I ask, interrupting the Water Spirit who was still going on her tangent about stuff I don't understand.

"I wanted to have a chat, but I didn't want them to hear it- why are you here?"

"That was a pretty major gear shit," I note.

"I know, it seems a bit weird to you, but I assure you it makes sense," The Water Spirit says. "Just not to you, or anyone you know or ever will know, so I guess it doesn't make much sense. Anyway, see, I didn't expect you to be the one to be here. I mean I should, but I wasn't paying attention and I was reading something else and I was expecting him to show up but he didn't and you did instead and I was confused for a minute but then I understood that I was just being far too absent-minded and not paying attention-"

"Slow down for a second, you words per second is high enough as is," I tell her. "Back up. _Who_ did you expect to show up instead of me?"

"Y- oh no!" She actually seems upset at the question. "You were going to make me answer and then you'd have gotten all pissy and bloodlusty after you heard the answer and then you would have put your knife to my neck and threatened me and then I'd be all terrified and all 'I swear I'm telling the truth, don't hurt me!' and you'd be all 'How do you know him! Answer me!' and all scary and stuff and then when I wouldn't answer because I'm too busy being scared you would kill me and then I'd be dead. Does being dead sound like a good idea to you? It doesn't sound like a good idea to me, nope, not at all. Not one bit, not a once."

As she continue her rant about things I have no idea about, my mind wanders and I notice something odd.

"Nice ring. Getting married?"

The Water Spirit pauses mid-rant. She looks at the ring on her left hand.

"No, that's the Ring of Andvarri. At least that's what most humans call it. I just call it a ring," The Water Spirit says. "It's a treasure of mine. People are all convinced that it's some holy artifact that holds my power and can control people's mind to an extent or even bring the dead back to life. I mean, it's true, but it means people keep trying to get it and steal it. It's really annoying having to nearly drown all these people because they just won't get the hint! If the first person couldn't steal it, and the second person couldn't steal it, and the 657th person couldn't steal it, I don't think the next one would be able to steal it, you know? I mean, it helps they think that they have the element of surprise when I always know when they're coming and what they've got and everything, so I have a few unfair advantages in my favor but- WAIT! Weren't you here to negotiate to cure Guiche?"

"I'd ask how you know, but I think I'm used to it by now. So, can you help?"

"Of course!"

The Water Spirit snaps her fingers. A few seconds later, Guiche joins us at the bottom of the lake in our cozy little bubble. Luckily for both of us, he's now unconscious.

"This guy, right?" The Water Spirit asks. I nod. "Just a simple love potion, shouldn't be that hard to fix. Water magic's all about healing, and I'm pretty good at water magic, you know? Alright, let's see. Um... Abracadabra!"

And with that, The Water Spirit slaps Guiche upside the face a few times, then grabs some water from outside the bubble and pours it all over him. After some coughing and sputtering, he goes right back to sleep.

"Well, it would be kind of annoying if he woke up and started wondering what happened, right?" The Water Spirit says, making a good point. "Don't worry, he should be fine. It may not have looked like it, but I'm very good with my magics!"

"Riiiiight. So, again, was there really any point in bringing me down here?" I ask. "I feel like anything you told me here could have been told to anyone, and it wouldn't matter."

"Well see, I was going to ask you why you were here and not him, I was even going to mention him by name! Geez, how stupid would I have to be to mention that name in front of you or anyone you know? My GOD! It's like I actually have a death wish or something! Believe me, I don't! I like living! But anyway, so I was going to chat with you about that, but luckily I was able to figure it out myself before I mentioned it. Still, how stupid did I have to be? First keeping up with the wrong story and then almost mention him? But still! We got everything taken care of, right? Guiche is all better, and I got to chat with the MC! Wait until Elise hears about this one!"

You know what, I think I'm done. Dealing with Spirits is really tiring. I kind of want to go home and sleep now.

"I understand!" The Water Spirit says with a smile. "I'll put you and Guiche back on the beach, and then your group can go on it's happy way! Talk to you again?"

... I don't know whether to say, "Sure," or, "Not if I can help it." Spirits are hard to deal with.

"See you around! Bye Jocelyn!" The Water Spirit says with a wave, before our bubble starts floating up to the surface, only to pop once we hit that surface, leaving me in the middle of a lake with an unconscious Guiche. Shit. I can already hear the Water Sprit going all "Oops. I didn't think this through." This is why I shouldn't make a habit of dealing with spirits.

"There they are!" Montmorency shouts from the shore.

"Hi! Don't worry, I can swim well," I say as I grab Guiche and swim to our companions.

"What happened?" Bonbon asks once we hit the shore. "You disappeared under the lake with the Water Spirit, and then a giant water tentacle came and pulled Guiche under the water. What did the Water Spirit want with you?"

"I... Honestly have no idea. I left that talk far more confused then when I went in."

"Did at least get a part of it's body?" Bonbon asks hopefully.

"Better. She says she already cured him," I say as I take off my skirt and start wringing it out. "Wet denim is not comfortable, let me tell you. Damn it, my jacket's soaked too. Fine, I'll wring that out too. Hypothermia isn't high on my 'to-get' list."

"Wait, she already cured him?" Bonbon asks as I remove the jacket also to try and get some water out of it.

"Yeah. Slapped him up a few times, cast some magic and poured water on him. I haven't woken him up yet to test that, but as weird as she was, I am willing to take her word on this one. I mean, she's an elemental spirit and everything so... Oi! Eye's up!"

"H-huh!" Bonbon seems embarrassed, if her blush means anything. "What do you mean eye's up?"

"No need to undress me with your eyes while I'm expositioning," I tell her. "I've done enough of both already."

"I'm not doing anything with my eyes!" Bonbon says indignantly. "It's just not proper for a woman to be outside in such a state of undress!"

"Right. Point is, Guiche is fine. We're good, we're okay to go home. ... Should I take off more?"

"H-huh?" Bonbon seems really flustered now. "W-why would you say that?"

"You're staring really hard at my chest, and your gaze drops a bit lower at times too. Are you trying to ask or say something?"

"N-no! It's just... They've... gone rather see through, thanks to the water," Bonbon forces the words out.

I look down. ... Right. Thin and white material, plus water does equal that. I don't really care, but Bonbon seems really bothered by it. My skirt and Jacket seem dry enough to put back on. Maybe she'll be able to stop blushing, I'm worried her face is going to explode.

"There. Now I wanna go home and sleep. Can we do that? I'm really kind of drained after my little chat."

"Um... R-right. Tabitha?" Montmorency asks.

Tabitha nods, then whistles for her familiar. Once Slyphid comes, we hop on and start flying back to the academy. Well. That was a weird day. I'll say that much. Nice change of pace and all, but weird. Nice way to pass the time though, I should hang out with Montmorency more often.


End file.
